


The Garden

by boneyaard



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adoptive family, Big Gay Love Story, M/M, Slow Burn, adam singing: those are my dads they're my dads boogie woogie woogie, angst and love, aziraphale and crowley adopt adam, but dont worry they immediately get retribution lmao, conversations about forgiveness, conversations about good and evil, painfully slow burn, raising the antichrist, seriously crowley almost says i love you 0923523592 times, tw for the f-g slur used once, two gays chillin in tadfield no feet apart cause they're both gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-07-11 18:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 68,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19932343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boneyaard/pseuds/boneyaard
Summary: Aziraphale thinks that he and Crowley should get married for tax reasons, and the Anti-Christ (according to Upstairs and Downstairs) is officially Not Evil Enough. In an effort to force the boy into realizing his destiny, Adam Young's parents are killed in a car accident that wasn't really an accident. Trying to stop a ticking time bomb of hormones from destroying the world when his beloved parents are no longer in it is probably impossible, but Aziraphale and Crowley are still going to try.





	1. Chapter 1

“You don’t suppose we should get married?” Aziraphale suggested conversationally one sunny afternoon over tea. Crowley, who had been lounging across from him on one of the antique chaises scattered about the living area of Aziraphale’s bookshop and seeing how many bottles of scotch he could down in the time it took for the angel to finish his Pekoe, spluttered and dropped the bottle directly on the floor. It shattered and sent glass and alcohol across the entire room. Aziraphale gave him a stern look and snapped his fingers, the bottle becoming whole and full again, sitting innocently on the antique carpet. 

“Excuse me,” Crowley slurred, wincing as he sobered up, “you’re... I’m not just drunkenly imagining things, you really did just say that we should get married, didn’t you?” 

“Yes! I did!” Aziraphale continued calmly. 

Now fully sober, Crowley leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. 

“Are you... Did you see a prank or something and now you’re trying to recreate it?” he asked suspiciously. 

“What? No!” Aziraphale exclaimed, rolling his eyes. He poured himself another cup of tea and continued briskly. 

“We are together constantly, and in this day and age, it begs more scrutiny than it used to because gay people can marry and the internet has made people nosier than they’ve ever been,” he huffed, “yesterday a woman came in here just to try and see if I was married, and when I said I wasn’t, she actually mentioned you.” 

Crowley wasn’t convinced. “You sure it wasn’t an angel or a demon in disguise trying to lure you into confessing something?” he asked, leaning forward and taking a full teacup, bringing it to his lips. 

“No, she was totally human. Just hear me out, dear. Firstly, we are the only two otherworldly beings who are permanently stationed on earth. Secondly, we spend weeks on end with one another. Thirdly, we could get quite a tax break if we combined our finances.” 

Crowley swallowed the scalding hot tea and stared up in shock at Aziraphale. “What... Are we just gonna waltz up to the HSBC and open a shared account?! And anyways, isn’t avoiding taxes kind of... My peoples thing?” 

“There is no heavenly good in a state that taxes people but not corporations,” Aziraphale sniffed.

Crowley snorted and shook his head. 

“But really, it would just makes sense if we had a shared address. You always end up here anyways, what would be the difference?” Aziraphale continued. 

“Oh! Oh! So I’m movin’ into your place now, am I? What about my flat? I’ll have you know it took me quite a few bribes to get that flat.” 

“Oh, Crowley, you can keep the flat! It will be good equity.” 

“Equity?!” Crowley had a deep impression that Aziraphale had finally found his sense of mischief and was using it on him now. 

“Oh, never mind,” Aziraphale sighed, rolling his eyes, annoyed, “Let’s get dinner tonight. The Ritz?” 

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ 

The restaurant was always lit somewhat dimly, but that wasn’t a problem for the otherworldly eyes of the demon and the angel who frequented there. Crowley didn’t enjoy eating as much as Aziraphale did, but he did enjoy the variety of liquors he got to peruse when he and his adversary took their meals together. According to Aziraphale, this restaurant served positively “delicious” lobster. Crowley had taken one look at the scorched red buggers and had zero interest in ever putting one in his mouth. It still amazed him the things that humans were willing to eat. He was almost certain the Almighty had not created lobsters for the express purpose of human consumption (let alone angelic consumption), but here they were– A room full of humans (and one delighted angel) gorging themselves on nasty little ocean bugs for exorbitant prices. 

“I’m serious, you know,” Aziraphale interjected after a few minutes of silence, “Nowadays, it’s easier just to say that we’re married to each other than it is for us to try and explain away a relationship that is obviously there.” 

Crowley looked up from his expensive red wine and leaned back in his chair, his eyebrows raised. When Aziraphale wanted to make a point he was quite dogged about it, mentioning it over and over until Crowley finally gave it his attention. Still, this was something he had genuinely thought was the angel’s poor attempt at a practical joke. His continued pursuit of the subject made him now think otherwise.

“You were serious,” Crowley stated, astonishment creeping into his voice, “you are actually serious about us getting married?” 

“I am,” Aziraphale said, smiling and nodding at him genially, “I think we’d make an… Ahh, striking couple, don’t you think?” 

“You’re completely daft,” Crowley laughed, putting down his wine and crossing his arms, “you’d really be legally married under God to a demon of hell just so you can have the convenience of not having to answer questions?” 

“Not just that, Crowley... You’re simplifying it a bit I think... just overshooting the bigger picture,” Aziraphale mumbled lowly, not looking Crowley in the eye. 

Crowley was struck dumb. He felt something pass between them that he couldn’t fathom, but it was there, the same bright warmth radiating from the angel’s body when he entered a place he knew was loved. Crowley swallowed hard, though he didn’t need to. His mind fizzed and popped with all sorts of unimaginable images and emotions and he stood up suddenly, knocking the table and sending a pitcher of water over, soaking the tablecloth. 

“I gotta... I’ll be right back,” he said haltingly, his voice distracted. He swept his eyes across Aziraphale, who was looking at him in a mixture of hurt and concern, before turning his back on the angel and walking away. He walked as if he were in a dream, out of the restaurant, blindly walking the streets of London, until he stopped and blinked. He had done a few circles and ended up directly across the street from The Ritz. He looked to his right and jumped, startled, gazing in a window display that showed him glittering necklaces, earrings, and rings. A jewelry store. Had he been played for a fool? Had Aziraphale purposefully chosen this restaurant for its proximity to a jewelry store? Crowley shook his head and snorted. No, that wasn’t his style. He just wanted really good lobster. It was just a coincidence. 

His feet took him inside. 

“Hello, welcome to Ritz Fine Jewelry,” greeted a pretty young woman, “Can I help you find anything in particular?” 

Crowley smiled thinly up at her, his shoulders slagging. “Uh. Yeah, rings. I’m lookin for a ring.” 

The woman was well trained. She smiled widely. “Oh, is it for an engagement, sir?” she asked him conspiratorially, leaning in across the glittering glass countertop. 

“Yeah. An...Engagement uh.. Thing. Money’s not an issue. Just need a ring.” 

“Oh, how exciting!” the woman enthused, and Crowley heard the tired note in her voice. He had come in ten minutes to closing time and usually the selection of a ring took far longer than the ten minutes she would likely be paid. He was a demon, after all. 

“Follow me,” she said, walking toward the back of the store. She gestured towards the central back case, where he knew all of their most expensive options were kept. They glittered beneath his dark glasses and he roved over them, making a show of being undecided as the minutes ticked on towards the end of the woman’s shift. She was just about to open her mouth to gently try and kick him out of the store when he spoke up. 

“Can I see those three?” he asked her, smiling. She smiled wanly and opened the case, bringing out the three he had selected. They were sort of gaudy, but that was Aziraphale in a nutshell. Soft and sort of gaudy. Something told him that Aziraphale would hate diamonds, and he was tempted to buy the biggest diamond the store carried just for the sake of annoying him. Five minutes past her shift, the woman was beginning to lose patience. 

“Perhaps we could book an appointment—“ 

“Sorry, my partner, he’s... He’s actually in the restaurant here and I just sort of decided I’d nip over here and get a ring... Said I was going for more wine.”

The woman actually smiled genuinely this time, and Crowley blinked in surprise. He had expected his explanation to cause her to become even more impatient— Impatient at his lack of foresight which was cutting into her personal time. Instead, something seemed to click inside of her and she warmed up from being a cool, detached customer service drone to a human being. 

“That’s really sweet, actually. I have a girlfriend waiting for me at home. She’ll think this is really cute.” 

Crowley blinked a few times and realized it was the fact that he’d identified his supposed fiancée to be as a ‘he’ while Crowley himself was presenting as a ‘he.’ She thought they were gay, like she was. Crowley grinned at her. Being a lesbian working in a diamond store must be an unimaginable hell... Watching beautiful women get engaged to idiot men who didn’t respect them and couldn’t find the clitoris if they were given a diagram? He shook his head and decided to wrap up his little shopping trip in solidarity for her suffering. He had picked the gaudiest diamond ring he could see, and was being rung through when another one caught his eye. 

He wandered over to it as the woman processed the transaction and gave it a look. He pulled up his glasses slightly to take it in. It was a very simple ring, gold, without any precious stones. Instead, it was carved with extremely delicate vines that snaked along the ring’s flat polished surface. 

“Sir?” 

He realized the woman had been calling him and he hadn’t answered. 

“Oh yeah. Uh.” 

He looked from the cash register to the simple ring and felt like he had lost his breath. 

“I’m sorry... I think—“ 

“You actually want to propose instead of just doing it to make him happy?” she finished for him, grinning as thought she’d hoped this would happen. 

“Uh,” Crowley swallowed, “something like that.” 

He pointed out the ring that had caught his eye and he bought it, declining the case that went with it and taking it away in his pocket. He had also nicked the gigantic diamond one while the girl wasn’t looking. His ring couldn’t be paid for. That would be just wrong. 

“Can I ask why you picked that one?” The woman asked him, walking with him to the door so she could officially close the store. 

“We met in a garden,” he told her, telling the truth. It didn’t matter that the garden in question was Eden and not his friend’s back garden— They were gardens, all the same. 

She smiled and nodded. “Good luck, love.” 

He waved as he left the shop, feeling like he was in completely new territory that he didn’t recognize and was being forced to give directions. He re-entered the restaurant and found Aziraphale sitting alone where Crowley had left him. He didn’t see him come back in, and was staring, lost in thought, at a spot on the wall. The soft candlelight played on his face and light clothing. It was getting dark, eventide sweeping gently across the world outside of the restaurant windows. He was holding a cup of wine but wasn't drinking, his brows furrowed slightly as though he were thinking of something that was bothering him that he couldn’t figure out. 

Crowley grabbed a bottle of expensive champagne from an unattended cart for good measure and sauntered over to their table, sitting down with a pleased sigh that smacked of a calm contentedness that he did not feel. 

“Miss me?” he teased Aziraphale, flicking the cork off the champagne with a snap of his fingers, spraying the bubbling drink across his hand on the neck of the bottle. He sloppily poured Aziraphale a glass, ignoring his wine, and poured another for himself. 

Aziraphale gave him a pained, annoyed look. “Really, Crowley... Where did you go?” 

He put his wine to the side (it wasn’t his favourite drink) and took the champagne, sipping it as he gazed at Crowley expectantly. 

“Dunno. Needed a walk. Feeling cagey lately.” 

Aziraphale’s expression softened and became sympathetic. Crowley swallowed and had to look away. He was grateful for his choice to wear dark glasses. A few qualities which angels possessed were a keen ability to read emotions, and, especially, read eyes. Other than the fact that his slitted, snakelike eyes often caused a stir, it was partly the reason he had started to wear them once they had been invented. 

“I understand. We’ve been here for quite a while, haven’t we Crowley?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Are you getting bored, dear?” 

Crowley readjusted himself in his chair, trying to get comfortable. He felt coiled and tense, and strangely warm. 

“No, no... Not bored. Time is... Time’s whatever, right? Doesn’t matter to either of us.” 

The truth was that Crowley was far from bored. Being propositioned by an angel tended to spice things up a bit, but he wasn’t about to admit that. 

Aziraphale seemed guilty. “Did I upset you, Crowley? I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” 

Crowley blinked and tilted his head. “No! No, that didn’t upset me. That’s not it. I dunno. Whatever. I’m fine now. I’m good.” He played with the vine carved ring in his pocket. He could give Aziraphale the ring. In his other pocket, the gaudy diamond ring sat. He could give Aziraphale this ring too— The humour would save him, show that he was both overly opulent and mocked the angel’s sensibilities regarding their arrangement. He licked his lips slightly, not touching his champagne. The silence between them was tense, an unusual state of being for their clandestine meetings. 

“Would you like to leave?” Aziraphale asked him tentatively. 

Crowley rubbed his head. The restaurant seemed almost too warm— and considering he had been burnt in hellfire, that was saying something. Aziraphale didn’t seem bothered by the temperature in the room. Was it just him? Was he sweating? Could demons who have been given bodies even do that? He felt like he had rocks in his throat. He was almost certain he didn’t have an actual physical heart that pumped blood but he could swear he could feel one slamming itself against his chest. The hand in his pocket seemed to be seared by the ring’s heat. 

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked him in a low voice, leaning forward, his brows knitted together, trying to discern what had gotten into his usually suave and collected friend. 

“Yeah. I’m fine. We should get out of here.”


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale offered to leave him alone to collect himself but Crowley had assured that it was fine– Almost too violently, for Aziraphale was now full-tilt concerned and had forced them back to his bookshop and was looking into a few dusty tomes for information on corporeal demons and what could affect them. Crowley, a drama queen at heart, lay on a chaise and squeezed his eyes shut. The angel wasn’t going to find anything, but the fact that he was even bothering to look made his being feel like it was catching fire. As the minutes drew on, he actually began to be concerned himself. Perhaps something was wrong? Maybe he was projecting about all the other things and he actually was in trouble. 

“I just don’t see anything in here about what you’re experiencing,” Aziraphale exclaimed, frustrated, a pair of glasses on his nose, sitting at his desk. His hair was sticking up even more than usual and his vest looked crumpled. Crowley looked to the clock and realized that more than twelve hours had passed. 

“Well, thanks for looking anyways,” Crowley told him in a rush, getting up from the chaise and standing, “I’ll just be going—“ 

Something terrible struck his core. He saw a flash of light and then nothing. He vaguely felt the sensation of his corporeal form falling to the floor in a heap as his mind was assaulted by what could only be described as a searing knife. He forced his eyes closed, the essence of his consciousness understanding little but comprehending that something was trying to take him over. 

He heard himself moan, felt himself writhe, hiss, contort his human shape as he fought against whatever it was that was trying to break him. It felt like his mind was being pressed against a red hot stove. The question of whether his corporeal form could sweat was answered as he felt himself drenched from head to foot. The invading presence was trying to open his eyes, and while Crowley didn’t exactly know why this was, he focused his entire being on keeping them shut. He wasn’t going to give in to the presence’s will. 

Suddenly, whatever it was gave up and he felt as though he had fallen through an explosion into the negative soundscape of outer space. He slowly opened his eyes, his glasses were nowhere to be seen. His vision was blurry but he could see a shining bright figure above him. His arms and legs were twisted in his clothing and he shivered. The sweat that covered his body was cold. Eventually his vision came into focus and he saw Aziraphale’s face very near to his, his arms holding him. He had seen the angel look uncomfortable and confused, but never terrified. Aziraphale was brave, but whatever he had witnessed had shaken him to his core. For a minute, Crowley debated whether or not to say something like “Haha, got you!” in order to cover up the fact that he himself was completely terrified of what had just happened, but he knew it wouldn’t work this time. 

Something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ 

Crowley decided to stay at Aziraphale’s bookshop for the rest of the week, despite both of their misgivings that their absences might be noted by their respective higher authorities. By the end of the seventh day, Crowley was resolutely cranky and worn down. At least once a day, sometimes twice, an invading presence tried to take over his body and he had to fight tooth and nail to keep control. After the latest attack had left him curled into a small pathetic ball, involuntarily weeping as he regained full control of his body, he was feeling quite despondent and defeated. Plus, he had lost the beautiful vine carved ring after the first attack, and while he knew it had probably just rolled beneath some furniture, he hadn’t had the energy or time alone to go looking for it. 

He was lying on a comfortable sofa, his eyes closed, catching his breath. He had never known exhaustion, but having observed it in the wretched eyes and overworked bodies of the downtrodden on the earth, he could recognize the feeling in him now. His eyes felt heavy and he knew the sandman had come to collect him, a novelty, a demon, who rarely entered his realm. He could see darkness in the corners of his vision and the only way he could stay semi conscious was by focusing on the pleasantly warm hand that sat on his shoulder, which he knew to be Aziraphale’s. 

“I am sorry,” Aziraphale whispered mournfully, “we will fix this. I promise.” 

“Can demons pass out?” he murmured. He could barely keep his eyes open. 

“Not usually... But under the circumstances.... Perhaps... Oh, I don’t know...” 

They were silent for a moment. 

“Do you trust me, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked him. 

“Yes,” Crowley replied, without hesitation. 

“Go to sleep for a little while, Crowley, and dream of whatever you like best,” Aziraphale whispered, and Crowley knew that he had caused a miracle to happen, an act of mercy for his sworn adversary, an act of love for that which he was supposed to hate. Sandman stole him gently, plucking him from the world of the waking like a flower for a bouquet, and Crowley drifted across the horizon of his consciousness into night. 

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ 

Aziraphale watched Crowley’s eyes flutter, like he were fighting the deep sleep that stole over him, until finally his eyes closed and he knew that Crowley was dreaming. A small smile rested on his face. No one slept so sweetly as ones blessed by an angel, and Aziraphale was relieved this extended to demons. He moved away and couldn’t help but cover him in a spare throw blanket. The demons body had been under considerable duress. They had concluded that someone or something was trying to gain control of him, but they couldn’t figure out who would want to do this or how they were doing it in the first place. If it was their respective higher authorities they would just contact them in the usual way. The Lord could still speak to demons if she wished, and Satan loved Crowley. They both knew there were a few characters in both heaven and hell who were suspicious and didn’t necessarily like them, but even then—How were they doing this? 

Aziraphale was stumped, and concerned. There was something greater at stake here, enough that he felt it warranted alerting the other angels. If whatever was trying to possess Crowley could achieve what it had, it could easily do the same to an angel. They had what Michael had once called an Interdepartmental Issue.He snapped his fingers and appeared outside of the official headquarters. He didn’t like leaving Crowley alone for long, but he needed advice. He appeared and so did Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, and Sandalphon, suddenly and gracefully. 

“Aziraphale! It’s been a while!” Gabriel greeted warmly, opening his arms. The other three looked on, detached. “What brings you here?” 

“I actually have an urgent matter. You’re all aware of the demon Crowley? The one who was put on earth as my adversary?” 

“Sure, Aziraphale, But,” Gabriel gave him a winning smile, “he’s not gonna get the better of you! I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Sorry but, no, that’s uh... that’s not quite the issue. See, I was... Thwarting one of his wiles when he suddenly collapsed, screaming—“ 

“He deserved it, I’m sure,” smiled Sandalphon. 

“No, no that isn’t the point... You see, something is trying to... Take control of Crowley’s body.” 

His statement was met with uncomfortable silence where the arch angel’s exchanged exasperated but kind looks, as though Aziraphale were a precocious child. 

“He is a demon, Aziraphale. Your loving nature is commendable, but he is probably just paying for his sins,” one of them said, and Aziraphale couldn’t pick out who because he was stunned and flabbergasted. They weren’t listening to him. 

“You—You all don’t understand! If something can possess a demon then surely... They could possess an angel? We are made of the same stock...” 

His statement was met with another uncomfortable silence. Only this time as the arch angel’s exchanged glances, the kindness was gone from their eyes. Only Michael was looking at him with any interest. 

“Aziraphale, if you’re afraid that this... What? Possession? Might get you, we can just have you stay in heaven. Leave the demon to his pain.” 

Aziraphale stared at Gabriel and shook his head, in extreme distress. “No, no! I’m fine, I am not frightened per se, simply a— Concerned citizen really.” 

“Then we should be okay here!” Gabriel exclaimed, clapping his hands together in satisfaction, “Keep up the good work, Aziraphale!” 

And with that, he found himself standing outside of the building they called headquarters. He was supremely disturbed that the angels hadn’t taken him seriously... If any of them came down, they could be next. And who knows what the attacker wanted? Aziraphale was just about to snap his fingers to get home, performing another frivolous miracle in pure righteous spite for the archangels' treatment of him, when he saw Michael in the corner of his eye. He turned and gave a her a guarded look.

“Aziraphale, I am not so convinced that this isn’t a problem. Can you think of anyone that might want to use a demon’s power?” 

“No! I can’t, that’s why... Why I tried to ask for help....” 

Michael nodded and gave him a conspiratorial look. “I will... Seek other opinions and bring you my findings,” she said, nodding at him with a small smile. Aziraphale blinked. He had always suspected that Michael dealt with hell more than she let on, but here was the proof. “Go back to your human life for now, Principality.” 

Aziraphale snapped his fingers, appearing in the bookshop. Crowley was still asleep on the couch, still dreaming... Except he was no longer smiling. He was having a violent nightmare.


	3. Chapter 3

“... dream of whatever you like best.”

Crowley closed his eyes and began to sleep. When he opened them again, he found himself lying on a cloud of plush, green grass. He seemed to be inside a sort of gigantic greenhouse. The ceiling was dotted with nebulas, their vibrant colours exploding across the roof above, his happiest memory; creating the art of the stars. Verdant, beautiful plants and flowers grew overhead and all around him. He looked to his right and a fully stocked cupboard of Aziraphale’s batch of 1921 Chateaudeneuf sat. His Bentley was parked near him in the jungle, and, directly beside him lying in the grass, was Aziraphale himself. He blinked and smirked. He supposed he _did_ like Aziraphale best out of all the angels. Aziraphale was lounging like he had no care in the world, his arms and legs splayed out. Aziraphale was rarely relaxed, but in this dreamworld he seemed as though nothing could bother him.

As a rule, angels and Demons had rather protracted relationships with bodies. They were not bound by physicality the way human’s bodies were. It was perhaps more accurate to say that Aziraphale’s _presence_ was splayed out across the grass without a care in the world, joy radiating off of him like a bright light. Crowley’s own form was smudgy and noncommittal, but bodily he felt the same— loose, relaxed, and calm. A sluggish memory crawled its way into his mind, the image of a simple gold ring etched with vines. He wondered to himself what he really wanted from Aziraphale. They had been on earth for so long together... Sometimes Crowley felt like a human being— albeit immortal and with superpowers. All the same he had learned to love in ways he never had done as an angel, learned to love humans more than he hated the angels, learned to love Aziraphale more than he loved the stars he had breathed into existence. He turned his head and gazed at the angel, whose form solidified as his mind made an unconscious decision. His typical clothes returned, the ones he had worn when he’d whispered the blessing for him to sleep. Whatever version of himself that he was, Crowley liked that one best.

Aziraphale turned his head and his eyes were sparkling and warm. He moved closer and laid his head onto Crowley’s chest, curling into him. Crowley looked down and he saw Aziraphale’s hand. Other than his golden pinkie ring, he was wearing the golden, vine carved band Crowley had bought him. It made him feel happy, in this dreamworld, to know that he had at least been able to give it to him. He felt at peace for the first time since he had fallen into the pits of hell. He was together with the one being in the whole universe who fully understood him, and that was enough.

Then, Aziraphale took the hand with the wedding band on it and shoved it directly into his chest, where his heart was supposed to be. Crowley gasped as the hand took hold of something solid in his form and held onto it with a vice grip. Aziraphale’s face was now in shadow, blurring as though his dream world couldn’t focus on him properly.

“ _Crawley_ ,” a voice whispered, carving through the substance of his dream, melting it at its edges, “ _Crawley..._ ”

“What do you want?” he snarled, reaching for the not-Aziraphale’s arm and wrenching on it, trying to remove it from where it had plunged into his breast.

“ _I want to speak to you._ ”

“Then speak! Stop trying to possess me,” he hissed, writhing, trying to get away.

“ _I must use your eyes to see. I must use your eyes to show you._ ”

Crowley was at the end of his rope. He didn’t know what else to do other than to chance it and allow whatever being this was to overtake him. He fell back and let his body go limp, fervently hoping that whatever the presence was, it wasn’t wholly dangerous. After a few moments, he felt something stir in him, something full of love and brightness. It burned him to hold this being, but he allowed it to open his eyes. He saw a little boy in the distance, and he thought he could make out blonde, curly hair. He was lying on the ground. The presence took his feet forward, gliding along a mist that covered half hidden shadows and looming objects that disappeared the moment he tried to make out what they were. As he approached, he could see the child was severely injured, bleeding, his body twisted. He looked up and saw a black cloaked figure.

“Hello, Crawley, demon of Hell. I am the end.”

Death.

“You— You were trying to possess me?” Crowley sputtered, gobsmacked, “Why the heaven didn’t you just—Visit? Show up? Pop in?”

“I am not the presence who leads your body. I may only walk where life ends.”

“Well, do you have any idea who is doing this?”

The cloaked figure extended a finger down to the child. Crowley stared for a moment, trying to focus on the boy, whose face was like a mirage that he couldn't see through. Then, he laughed. “Really? A nine year old? Able to mentally attack a demon to try and take him over? Good joke. Nice one. I didn’t know Death had a sense of humour.”

“This child is not who he seems to be. He escapes my grasp. None escape my grasp... But I must try. I am everywhere at all times, Crawley. The shadow that follows life. This child sees me. His mind whispers to me.”

Crowley was more confused than he was before he had allowed the presence to take him to this place and he scrunched his eyes shut. All he wanted was to be back at his flat, calling Aziraphale on the telephone and laughing about a minor inconvenience he had caused on his way home. He wanted to finish the glass of champagne he’d poured himself and left cold on the table of the Ritz. He wanted things to go back to where they were before.

He opened them and he was in Aziraphale’s bookshop, lying on the sofa, a throw blanket over top of him. Aziraphale was standing above him, looking kind and concerned. Beside him, to Crowley’s astonishment, stood the tall and handsome Archangel Gabriel and the Lord of Hell, Beelzebub.

“Oh, hello all,” he greeted flippantly, his mouth incredibly dry and very groggy, “what seems to be the matter?”

“You, apparently,” sneered Beelzebub.

Crowley gave Aziraphale a reproachful look. “You think this might be a little bit of an overreaction?”

“No, I think it’s the proper amount of reaction,” Aziraphale sniffed, “I’ll have you know whatever it was tried to possess me too while you were out.”

“How long?” Crowley asked to no one in particular, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth and smacking his lips.

“A week,” Aziraphale replied promptly.

Crowley blinked. An entire week. No wonder his clothes felt stiff and he smelled terrible.

“It tried to possess you?” Crowley asked, deliberately ignoring both Beelzebub and Gabriel and focusing his entire attention onto Aziraphale. He slowly sat up, his hair and clothes completely disheveled.

“Yes, for just a few moments...,” he said, turning to a tea tray and pulling a cup of tea from its surface. He came back over and handed it gingerly to Crowley, who leaned his head back onto the sofa tiredly. Despite sleeping for a week, he felt exhausted again. Crowley took the cup of tea without complaint and softly noted that it was the perfect drinking temperature. That couldn’t have been by accident.

“The presence... I don’t think it’s malevolent per se, but it is desperate, which is why it might be violent.”

“Did you... Did it feel...,” Crowley looked deeply into Aziraphale’s face as he spoke, trying to make him understand what he didn’t want to say in front of their guests. He wanted to know if it had hurt Aziraphale as much as it had hurt Crowley.

“I believe I quite collapsed,” Aziraphale said sympathetically, “but I was also able to sense that it wasn’t a necessarily destructive force.”

He turned to the Archangel and Lord of Hell.

“Would either of you like tea?” he asked politely.

“No,” said Beezulbub.  
“No thank you,” said Gabriel.

Crowley sipped his tea and tried to push down the feeling of anxious tension in his body. He finally looked up at the two unwanted guests and he was amused to see that they were standing awkwardly and stiffly in the middle of the room, like they had never interacted with a human space in their entire existences. Perhaps they hadn’t.

“Sit down, you’re making it weird,” he told them offhandedly. Aziraphale looked about the room in the sort of halfhearted way he did when there was a situation he couldn’t fix, and decided to join Crowley on the loveseat as opposed to squishing in beside an unfamiliar demon and one of his bosses.

Gabriel looked around, saw a chair, and sat primly in it, like he were a figure made of wood. Beelzebub snorted disdainfully and plopped themselves right in the middle of the floor like a reluctant child hearing a story from a boring grandparent.

Crowley smirked. “Let’s hear the deeds of the day before we get to the issue at hand.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow and gave him a pointed look.

“Oh. Oh yes, of course. Sure thing,” Gabriel oozed, “I can start—“

“I’ll start,” drawled the voice of Beelzebub, cutting across him. They smiled greasily. “Today, I tempted a man to steal money from a donation bin. Hell will have him in a month.”

Gabriel blinked a few times. “Today, I convinced a man to return the money he stole from a donation bin....?”

Beelzebub and Gabriel stared at one another.

“Yeah, no score drawn, yadda yadda. Now you know how we feel,” Crowley said rolling his eyes and smirking.

“Often things do get cancelled out between us,” Aziraphale sighed, “humans are the makers of their own lives, I’m afraid.”

“Well now that we’ve properly established that we’re all useless in the long run, let’s get down to it,” Crowley sighed tiredly.

The following hours were fraught with debate, a few insults, a couple of hurt feelings, and a minor brawl— All of which was extremely productive and produced extremely valuable results. For example, Beelzebub had established that they didn’t mind black tea and could, in their corporeal form, put their knee behind their head. Gabriel learned that he disliked tea immensely and that Beelzebub was flexible and could do strange and illegal wrestling moves, such as put their knee behind their head. Crowley learned he liked watching his old boss and new boss slam dunk each other and Aziraphale learned he disliked wrestling. All in all, two angels and two demons grew as people that day.

As Gabriel and Beelzebub bit at each other for the fiftieth time in a heated argument of whose jurisdiction Crowley’s problem was, Crowley leaned into Aziraphale’s ear.

“Well, this has been fun, but not exactly useful,” he muttered, taking a sip of wine. They had moved onto wine after Beelzebub had put Gabriel in a headlock with their freakish flexibility. Even Aziraphale, patient saint he was, had required a little bit of liquor to handle the scene unfolding before him.

“No, not really... I rather thought they would have been more useful than this,” Aziraphale agreed with a quiet, frustrated sigh.

Crowley took a sip and smacked his lips. “Why don’t we leave them? Just... Nip out the back? Have dinner?” Crowley spun around, looking at the clock, seeing it was nowhere near supper time and corrected himself. “Brunch?”

Aziraphale seemed to waffle for a moment, looking over to where Gabriel and Beelzebub were arguing with one another, their backs turned to himself and Crowley.

“Oh... Oh alright. But you’re sobering up before you drive anywhere. A disincorporation is the last thing either of us need right now.”


	4. Chapter 4

Brunch, logically, took them to lunch, which in turn took them to dinner, by which time the logical progression of their day had become extremely foggy and hard to follow and had became more of a wobbling, zig zagging path that eventually led to Aziraphale falling over sideways into a rose bush after tripping on a curb. Crowley, who had been the only thing holding Aziraphale upward, went tumbling after him. 

“Ow, ow, ow! Bloody OW!” Crowley swore, picking the three versions of a thorn out of the three versions of his hand. He squinted and opened his eyes wide and put his head forward and backward, trying to get it to the original 1 thorn, 1 hand ratio. 

He finally pulled it out and triumphantly let out a whoop of success. He couldn’t feel the other thorns in his body at this time, thanks to the torturous amount of liquor they had both consumed. Beneath him, Aziraphale was lying down inside the thorny rose bush like it were a soft bed, completely unaware that one had scratched his face. He looked content. Crowley, lying half on top of him, tapped him on the nose. 

“Wurr in a rosebhsh. Rose. Bush. There’s thornsss. You got cut.” 

“Oh dear,” Aziraphale all but giggled, “that’s too bad.” His eyes were closed, as though he were on the edge of sleep. 

Crowley leaned back on his haunches, pulling himself out of the bush and back onto the sidewalk. He reached for Aziraphale and pulled him out. Sloppily they managed to become upright again, but Aziraphale was fading fast. His tolerance for alcohol was less than his, and while there was clearly no biological reasoning for this, Crowley’s theory was that it was because he was an angel. Angels probably shouldn’t consume copious amounts of alcohol. Then again, Aziraphale did a lot of things he wasn’t technically supposed to do. Sometimes, deep down, Crowley felt jealous. All he had done was ask questions, and he had been thrown down into the pits of hell. Aziraphale often flaunted the Shoulds and Shouldn’ts of heaven and he got away scot free. 

“Hey Aziraphale,” Crowley slurred, holding up the angel’s body, who was leaning heavily on him like a useless sack of potatoes, “fuck you.” 

Aziraphale fell to the ground in a violent fit of laughter. 

“Well, well... F... Fuck you too, Crowley!” he slurred back from his place on the ground. 

Crowley’s drunken shock forced him to sit down on the curb and he cackled. 

“Mmmaybe we should. Sober. Ssssober up,” Aziraphale burped, crawling on the sidewalk to sit beside Crowley.

“I don’ wanna,” moaned Crowley. He liked being drunk, like this, with Aziraphale, just the two of them. Having a good time.

Aziraphale leaned his head against Crowley’s shoulder, his eyes closing sleepily. “Me knee. Knee-Thur. But. We shhhould.” His bow tie had come undone at some point and he had put it in the pocket of his coat for safe keeping. His vest was unbuttoned and so was the top of his button up shirt. Crowley swallowed, watching the smooth skin of his neck. 

“M’flats jus like... Rigt there,” Crowley garbled, putting his arm genially around the sleepy Aziraphale, “we cud jus go theren... Rest. Bettern... Bein near our bossssses.” 

“Okay,” Aziraphale chirped brightly, his eyes still closed, “buh you gotta c-carry me. On your back. Piggy back. M’sleepy.” 

“Okay,” Crowley agreed, kneeling down. Aziraphale sloppily climbed onto Crowley’s back. With a bit of staggering and one incident where Aziraphale almost fell off, they managed to make it to Crowley’s flat, which was, as usual, devoid of many personal effects and immaculately clean. Crowley brought him into the stark bedroom, which held a king size bed and not much else. He dumped Aziraphale on the white silk sheets and helped him remove his shoes. He then crawled into the other side. Lying on top of the covers, Crowley shivered a bit. It was a cool night and the warmth of the booze left him shivering against the cold bed. 

Aziraphale turned to him, his eyes cracked open ever so slightly, smiling widely and drunkenly. 

“M’gonna get coh-see,” Aziraphale muttered, sounding like he had cotton in his mouth. He shimmied ungracefully, flailing his arms until his strange flopping motions had successfully achieved their purpose in covering himself with the blankets on Crowley’s bed. He curled into them, lying on his side and facing Crowley.

“C’mere, ya big... Big... Softie,” Aziraphale said, flicking the blankets open and offering a place in front of him. 

Crowley, though extremely drunk, had the dim thought that he really shouldn’t cuddle up to an angel while both of their bosses were currently most likely looking for them both. He turned and stared at Aziraphale who was slowly beginning to fall asleep, his outstretched arm falling by degrees onto the bed. He blinked slowly again and tried to recall his last thought, and why he felt this was a bad idea. Unable to remember, he pushed the feeling aside. Aziraphale was always very nervous when it came to touching, even when it was completely innocent. The fact that he wanted Crowley to curl up beside him was like having all of earth's holidays combined into one. 

Crowley came near Aziraphale and tentatively inserted himself between the sheets and the angel’s body. Aziraphale was radiating heat like a beacon and Crowley smiled because he was so warm and so loving and in this moment he, and only he, was who the angel had chosen to give that affection. He stayed a decent distance away, not wanting to presume anything, but his confused, drunken fears were assuaged when Aziraphale wrapped his soft arms around him and pulled Crowley tight against his body. Crowley’s hips backed up into Aziraphale and the soft roundness of the angel’s belly against his back made him smile. He lazily pulled off his sunglasses and threw them across the room. Aziraphale’s right arm gently supported Crowley’s neck and his left arm was wrapped tightly around Crowley’s stomach. He breathed a sigh of happiness. Aziraphale put his face into Crowley’s exposed neck and he could feel him smirking against his skin. 

“What’re yew smilin’ about?” Crowley drawled, his words half forming in his mouth. He felt Azirphale’s smile widening against his neck and then his lips did something completely different. 

Aziraphale tenderly placed a kiss on Crowley’s neck. As he did, he leaned his body forward, closing any space that had remained between them. The tiny kiss only lasted a moment, like Aziraphale were indulging a loved family member, before he pulled away. Crowley’s body, though feeling like jelly from the alcohol, tensed for a moment in wonder.

“Wyh practically... Alreadh... marreeed, Crowleee,” Aziraphale slurred, falling asleep, “alreadee Marie.” 

He was out like a light. Crowley stared at the wall and thought about the ring he had lost, and couldn’t fall asleep until much later. 

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ

Gabriel managed to wrest himself out of Beelzebub’s headlock and grabbed the demon by the upper body, slamming them down onto Aziraphale’s plush carpet and causing them to swear loudly in pain. 

“Heaven,” he gasped, sweating, “always —pant—triumphs over—gasp—evil.” 

Beelzebub rolled over on the floor, lying down with one half of their body extended beneath the loveseat and the other sprawled across the carpet. They looked up at him. They knew in hell they had dark eyes, but when they were an angel they had been blue. When they went to earth, they were blue again. They narrowed their eyes. 

“You’re obnoxious, Gabriel.” 

He ranted on for a few more minutes and instead of listening to him, Beelzebub looked under Aziraphale’s loveseat. There were stray pieces of paper with a scrawling, pretty handwriting on them, covered in dust. At the back, something was shining, catching their eye. They raised an eyebrow and rolled onto their side so they could reach it. They slid it across the ancient wood floor with their hand and brought it in front of their eyes. It was a pretty ring, simple gold, with vines carved along the band. They held it up to the overhead light and examined it. 

Gabriel stopped his rant. 

“What’s that?” 

“Dunno. Ring. Must have rolled under here. Not dusty so it rolled under there recently,” Beelzebub shrugged, flicking it toward Gabriel who caught it dextrously. 

The second it touched his hands Gabriel felt a strong sensation. His entire body was filled with warmth, radiating through the essence of his being. Love. This ring was loved. Dimly, he recalled that the Lord had given Aziraphale a ring, which he wore on his pinky. This must be that ring. He shook his head. How careless. That was two gifts directly from the Lord, their God that Aziraphale had misplaced. He pocketed it. 

“It’s Aziraphale’s ring.” 

“They’re not here,” Beelzebub commented tonelessly, “they left us a while ago.” 

“I know... Should we... Go look for them?” 

“I dunno.” Beelzebub had crossed their arms and for all intents and purposes looked like they were about to settle in for a nap. Gabriel gave a long suffering sigh. 

“We should look for them. Something is trying to possess demons and angels. This is dangerous.” 

“Maybe,” Beelzebub agreed, smiling slightly, their eyes closed. 

Gabriel looked down at them and narrowed his eyes. “You’re hiding something, Beelzebub. I know that smile.” 

“Maybe,” they intoned again, their grin widening. Their teeth were strangely sharp. 

Gabriel’s hand flew downward and he grabbed the demon by their front, pulling them toward him and snarling. “You will TELL ME what you’ve done,” he demanded, shaking them. They smiled lazily up at him and let their body fall like a rag doll. 

“I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do now, angel,” they said calmly, still grinning. Their eyes, now blue like Gabriel had remembered them all those eons ago, had a dark fire burning in them. 

“The thing that we have been waiting for... Happened.” 

Gabriel’s eyes widened in shock and awe, letting Beelzebub go. They floated in the air for a moment before eerily drifting back onto their feet. Their icy blue eyes were cold and calculating. 

“That’s right... The Anti-Christ is on earth... He has been on earth for almost... oh... Ten years now,” they said nonchalantly, “He’s coming into his power... And soon.” 

Gabriel smiled a gracious smile. Finally. It was time to settle their score. “Why do you think the boy is trying to possess Crowley?” 

Beelzebub shrugged. “Maybe he remembers him. We had him deliver the baby, after all. Mind you— He doesn’t remember it. Hastur and Ligur made sure of that. We wouldn’t want Crowley to know where the anti-Christ was... And we especially didn’t want an angel of all beings to know where he was.” They reached their hands to Gabriel’s scarf, which had become tangled in their brawl, and slowly worked at setting it right. 

Gabriel chuckled good-naturedly. “Very clever, Beelzebub, as always.” 

For the first time Beelzebub looked anything but bored.

“The final test, Gabriel,” they whispered up at him, blinking their shining eyes, their hands lingering on his scarf, “the end.” 

His violet eyes seemed to blur with memories long forgotten and he blinked to try and banish them. God had stricken the demons’ original names from the minds of the angels when they fell, and Gabriel only had his memories to haunt him, showing him what Beelzebub had looked like within the light of Heaven. 

“Yes,” he said, his voice low, “the end.” 

Beelzebub pulled their hand away and closed their eyes. When they opened them again, they were dark.

“Let’s go find our errant subjects... I think they’ve been rather traitorous, don’t you think?”


	5. Chapter 5

A big downside to living life on earth as an occult being (or ethereal being, as some prefer) with a physical form was that you were unable to phase through walls. You were of the physical plane, contained in a physical body, and there was simply no way to become ephemeral in the true sense. The science was that, if extremely pressed, you could resize yourself to microscopic proportions in order to become invisible to the naked eye. It wasn’t as cool as phasing through walls, but you could still nip under a door and appear on the other side if you really wanted the full effect. This sort of maneuver would also require prior planning, dexterity, and a quick thinking brain, something which neither Crowley nor Aziraphale possessed at 8:37 AM when a very unamused Lord of Hell and Archangel busted down the door to Crowley’s flat.

Awoken with a startle, Aziraphale scrambled to get out of bed and got caught up in the sheets. Crowley leapt like a startled cat toward the ceiling, hissing all the way in surprise and clinging to the industrial rafters. Aziraphale finally untangled himself from the bedding and stood up, looking wildly to where Crowley dangled from the ceiling.

“Okay, enough wasting time,” Gabriel called, his voice echoing throughout the cavernous flat, “we know you’re both here.”

Aziraphale swallowed hard and looked to the closed door of the bedroom and then back to Crowley, who, grimacing, had made it back to the floor.

“Crowley. In here. NOW!” Beelzebub screeched angrily.

Aziraphale turned to Crowley. “Out the window,” he mouthed, “out the window! I’ll distract them!”

Crowley raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. He sauntered over to the wide window, opened it, and climbed easily out into the summer morning air, closing it with a snap behind him. Aziraphale straightened his clothing, draping his coat over his arm and smoothing out his collar. He wasn’t his usual best (his vest and bow tie were still safely folded in his coat), but it would have to do.

He swallowed hard and opened the bedroom door, walking as confidently into the main area of the flat as he could.

“Hello, gentlemen. Apologies for keeping you both waiting,” he forced cheerily, draping his coat over a modern, hard looking armchair and smiling genially at the glowering face of Beelzebub and the thinly smiling face of Gabriel.

“Where’s Crowley?” Beelzebub asked bluntly.

“Oh, he just went outside for...Ah... Air.”

The front door to the flat opened, giving a rather undignified screech in protest from its recent abuse, and Crowley walked through it, holding a paper tray with four take away cups of coffee. Aziraphale noted he had somehow found a shirt while he was out, because the oversized, outdated 70s orange bowling shirt he was wearing was definitely not his. Reading the top of the cups of coffee, Aziraphale guessed that maybe he had “found” these coffees in the same place he had “found” his shirt. The demon swayed easily into the room, as though nothing was out of place, smirking widely and regarding Gabriel and Beelzebub over his aviator sunglasses (which were also stolen). Aziraphale internally sighed at the prospect of having to consume stolen coffee, but mostly he was grateful that Crowley had thought of something quick.

“Coffee anyone?” Crowley offered, coming into the room and putting the tray onto one of the small bleak tables and taking two. He handed Aziraphale one, which was addressed to “Rusty” and which seemed to be the most sugary beverage of the bunch. Aziraphale nodded at him, trying to pretend he felt easy, like they had done nothing wrong.

“How about... I’ll try one of those liquid things if you tell us where you went last night,” Gabriel suggested, leaning against a chair and folding his arms over his knee, his annoyance barely contained by his plastic grin.

“We, well, we were... Um,” Aziraphale faltered, desperately looking for an answer that wasn’t an outright lie, but wasn’t exactly an outright truth. He had lied before plenty of times, but lying directly to the Archangel Gabriel’s face was not exactly a smart move.

“We got a lead,” Crowley interjected, sipping his black coffee addressed to ‘Brock’, “I convinced Aziraphale to come with me to investigate it, but it got late.”

Aziraphale gave him a withering look, annoyed Crowley had made him look like he was bad at his job in front of his boss.

“He said he wouldn’t help us if I didn’t go with him. I thought... Well, for the greater good...”

“Of course,” Gabriel nodded, his smile paper thin and his eyes cold, “Naturally.”

“What lead?” Beelzebub demanded, sniffing around the coffee tray. Both they and Gabriel already knew who and how Crowley was being taken over, but they still didn’t know why.

Crowley sipped his coffee and leaned back in a chair.

“A boy. There’s a young human boy doing it, and he’s badly hurt.”

Aziraphale looked to him and Crowley could feel the burning questions on the angel’s tongue. Crowley did feel a little badly that he hadn’t shared this with him earlier, but it had all been a bit much and what he needed most was to relax and pretend things were normal.

“A boy?” Gabriel exclaimed, a little too loudly. Crowley gave him an appraising look, not trusting the Archangel’s tone.

“You could have told us this sooner,” Beelzebub droned, annoyed. He didn’t trust Beelzebub either, but that was just a general rule among demons. Beelzebub could lie as easily as breathe, but Gabriel was bad at it— They both knew something.

“Yeah. Sorry. All a bit uhhh... much,” Crowley stumbled, downing his piping hot coffee in a few determined swigs. “Well, now I just need to figure out where this little bastard is and we can put a stop to all this.”

Beelzebub and Gabriel exchanged a look and Crowley’s suspicions were confirmed. He narrowed his eyes at them over his cup and wondered if this had to do with the missing five hours of his life that had happened roughly ten years ago. The boy would be about the same age as the time since the incident.

“So you have to let him possess you,” Aziraphale said, thinking out loud, having completely missed the pointed looks Gabriel and Beelzebub we’re giving each other, “That’s... That’s quite dangerous, Crowley...”

Crowley turned and gave him a look that he knew Beelzebub and Gabriel couldn’t see, and it was one of exasperated tenderness. However, Aziraphale wasn’t comforted by the look; on the contrary, he seemed to become even more anxious.

“You can’t seriously— Crowley!”

Crowley gave him a tired grin. “It’ll be fine,” he assured. He looked over to Beelzebub and Gabriel, who seemed even more suspicious than before.

“Uh. Not that you care, you... Worthless do-gooder… Idiot,” he added on hastily for good measure.

“Yes, you... You foul fiend!” Aziraphale exclaimed dramatically, catching on. Unfortunately he was a worse play actor than Gabriel and Crowley had to hide his grimace by turning around and walking toward his bedroom.

“Right, well. I’m gonna change... Shower. Whatever. Wait for the little bugger to possess me.”

He disappeared into the bedroom with a snap of the chic door.

Aziraphale couldn’t endure standing in the same room as the superiors of heaven and hell for long before he began to panic. He wished he’d never gone to the other angels for help. They always seemed to cause more problems than they actually solved, and he felt terribly for feeling this way, but it was the simple truth. They hadn’t helped in any significant way and now they were both judging him. He may be a Principality, but he still deserved some dignity. He swallowed hard, mustering his internal strength. They stared at him, unused to the concept of an awkward moment and completely unheeding of the passage of time.

He turned around and followed Crowley into the bedroom, muttering something about needing to change as well. He was beginning to realize that most angels and demons really had zero idea about any sort of human social decorum, which meant that he could escape without much explanation. He closed the door behind him and let out a breath. He turned around, and blinked rapidly. Crowley was lying on the floor, his eyes wide open. He was muttering.

“Outside of Tadfield,” his hoarse voice whispered at a higher pitch, like it were someone else’s, “please help me… Outside of Tadfield…”

The voice faded and Crowley’s body relaxed. He blinked a few times and groggily sat up, rubbing his head.

“Wh… Aziraphale?”

“Yes, Crowley… I heard him. The boy, he spoke! Do you remember any of it?”

“No, not at all… I just let him and it was like I went to sleep for a few minutes,” Crowley responded drowsily, “What’s he say?”

“He said that he’s outside of Tadfield… Poor thing, he’s been there quite a while… He must have extraordinary power to do that…”

Aziraphale paused, biting his lip.

“I’ve been thinking, Crowley…” Aziraphale gulped, wringing his hands nervously, extending one briefly to help Crowley to his feet, “you don’t suppose…?”

“Almost ten years ago now, I had a few hours I couldn’t account for. A few miles on the Bentley I couldn’t remember… A distinct smell of baby powder in the car.”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened in shock.

“You think—“

“Yes, angel,” Crowley said slowly, “I think the kid who just asked you for help is the fucking Anti-Christ.”

Aziraphale and Crowley decided to play along, pretending they were completely at a loss for why a young boy was able to possess a demon. They got properly dressed this time, Aziraphale heaving a sigh of relief when he had his vest and bow tie wrapped firmly about his body. He hated being in any way naked in front of Gabriel, a stinging memory of the dressing down he had gotten for his gift of the flaming sword to humanity.* He twitched anxiously, and wondered briefly what kind of universe the Almighty had created in which an angel felt more comfortable with a demon than with its own kind. He brushed the thought away quickly, shaking his head. This kind of thinking was why he got dressings-down in the first place.

They had shared the information with their superiors, Crowley grudgingly and Aziraphale nervously, that the boy with Strangely Strong Powers was somewhere outside of Tadfield, in Oxfordshire. Gabriel and Beelzebub, who had no concept of movement and time on earth, acted as though they were walking to the nearby park. While it wasn’t a particularly long drive, it was a drive all the same and he wasn’t sure how they would take it. They followed calmly behind until Crowley hopped into the driver’s seat of the Bentley and Aziraphale went around the passenger side. Beelzebub stopped dead on the sidewalk, staring at the car as though it were a disgusting mess. Gabriel, coming to stand beside them, pointed to the car and made a face of confusion.

“We’re going in the… In that thing?” he asked uncertainly.

“Do you have a problem with that, oh Arch Angel Gabriel?” Crowley asked sarcastically through the window he was rolling down.

“Oh, well— Couldn’t we just… Appear there just as easily?”

“We don’t want people to ask questions, Gabriel,” Aziraphale explained kindly, “Humans are, ah.. Quite a bit more inquisitive than they used to be.”

Aziraphale looked to Beelzebub. “Well, dear?” he prompted sweetly.

Inside the car, Crowley hid his grin by looking toward the radio and fiddling with a dial. With extreme reluctance, Gabriel and Beelzebub got into the car, climbing like two unruly siblings into the backseat.

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ

The drive was longer due to congestion on the M25, but Crowley didn’t mind. He had been stuck in the London area for so long it felt wonderful to be anywhere but the rainy, foggy city. The country views of Oxfordshire were a marked improvement. The weather was warm and beautiful, and the midsummer flora and fauna were at the peak of their glory.

“Oh, by the way, Aziraphale, almost slipped my mind— You lost your ring!” Gabriel smiled after about forty minutes of driving to the sound of Freddie Mercury (God rest his soul) singing through the speakers, fishing in the pocket of his suit and pulling out a small golden band. He held it out to Aziraphale. In the front seat, Aziraphale turned, the leather squeaking, and looked down at the ring. He blinked a few times, before holding up his pinkie ring which was resolutely still on his finger. Beside him, driving the Bentley with a sudden demonic speed, Crowley’s teeth ground so loudly that he was surprised the others in the car couldn’t hear him.

“Oh, that isn’t mine, Gabriel!”

Gabriel looked a little confused. “Oh, really? I picked it up and I got the distinct sense it was an angel’s ring... Huh. No matter.” Crowley watched from the corner of his eye, coiled like the snake he was. It was an angel’s ring... Or at least, if he survived, it would be.

“Where did you find it?” Aziraphale asked him politely.

“I found it,” Beelzebub chimed in petulantly, taking up a large portion of the backseat with their legs and arms sprawled, “under a chair in your house.” It seemed to Aziraphale that demons simply couldn’t sit straight even if they tried. He suspected it was against their nature.

“Oh, my bookshop! Yes, well I don’t really live there per se but I don’t spend my time in the attached flat.” Beelzebub ignored him and looked out the window. Crowley took a turn at top speed and Beelzebub slide across the flat leather bench seating and bumped into Gabriel. Aziraphale, who had infinitesimally gotten used to Crowley’s driving, had grabbed onto the handle above the door at the last second. Recovering, and eyeing a stretch of straight road for a little while, Aziraphale turned to Gabriel.

“May I see the ring, if it isn’t a bother?” he asked. Beside him, Crowley silently mocked him, making a face like he had looked into his handbag and found a pile of shit.

“Certainly,” Gabriel responded graciously, holding out the ring for Aziraphale to take.

Crowley took an unnecessary and extremely sharp turn and they all scrambled to hold onto something to avoid toppling over. In the process, (and according to Crowley’s secret plan), the ring dropped out of sight. With a snap of his fingers that nobody saw, the ring was in his pocket again. The place where Crowley’s heart was supposed to be was slamming so hard into his chest that he almost felt like he needed to pull over. He gritted his teeth and ignored the shouts of dismay and anger at him for taking the turn so suddenly.

“Now you’ve gone and lost that ring! It looked so nice, too,” Aziraphale chided him, and Crowley swallowed hard, his jaw clenching. He couldn’t let Aziraphale touch the ring before he was ready to give it to him.

Otherwise, he would know.

They pulled along through the winding countryside, the sun shining innocently down through the windows. A few birds trilled and the trees swayed in the breeze as the summer day reached its zenith and then started to fade into the afternoon. Crowley had started to drive like a regular race car driver instead of a demonic one, desperately trying to delay their arrival to formulate some kind of plan.

The Anti-Christ was here. He was just about ten.

The earth had about a year to live.

Unless… Unless there was no kid. The boy was terribly injured. Maybe he wouldn’t survive. Maybe the earth could be saved from the child’s wrath. Maybe death would eventually get its prize. He swallowed and remembered Mesopotamia, the laughing children, the rain, the terror, the flood, floating on a raft and watching swollen bodies float by, pulling drowning infants from their drowning mothers arms. The hot sun, the humid burning away of the waters, the rotting flesh, the flies.

_“Even the kids? You can’t kill kids…”_

Crowley ground his jaw, a muscle jumping in his face. Turns out, _They_ could kill kids.

He remembered Aziraphale’s expression, the guilt etched plainly on his face despite the decision to drown thousands of people being completely out of his hands. How he, ever the optimist, tried to find something good about it all. He sighed heavily, giving up. It was no use. Crowley stopped wasting time and turned the Bentley down a dark forested side road towards their destiny.

–––––––––––  
* go check out The Strong Tower by BuggreAlleThis right here on Ao3 for some amazingly written description of aziraphale's demotion for giving away the sword. aziraphale's demotion is kind of canon in the book in the sense that aziraphale is a principality ("but people made jokes about that these days"), but the details aren't described. I and a bunch of other folks in the community think he might have had a set of wings taken for this, and in the show he kind of acts like he doesn't like to be touched which is very interesting. im a huge fan of eldritch horror angels so all this background info is getting written into my fic LMAO.


	6. Chapter 6

As Crowley drew closer to the outskirts of Tadfield, the boy seemed to be drawing him in, taking over his mind for a few milliseconds and showing him flashes of images which would lead him to where he was. The boy was getting very weak, and Crowley began to suspect that he wasn’t actively doing any of this. It seemed more and more likely that this was a built-in response, unconscious, present in case the boy were to need help. Crowley grimaced and furrowed his brow. More than likely, he had unwittingly been woven into the fabric of the boy’s life as the tool which was programmed to respond to that distress signal. 

He turned down a side road, getting a flash of the bent street sign. The summer air had turned humid, the sun barely able to break through the haze. A thunderstorm was brewing above them, pressing down on the countryside. The trees were eerily still as Crowley slowed down and picked his way through the thin, winding lane. After about five minutes, he saw a flash of metal and the tire tracks in the muddy bank confirmed what he suspected. A car was upside down, having driven off course and crashed through the woods. Crowley pulled to the side as much as he could and cut the engine. He stepped out. Not bothering to wait, he strode across the lane and through the thick underbrush toward the upside down car. It looked as though it had burnt a little, and he dipped his head down to take a peek inside. He made a face. 

The bodies of two adult humans were hanging, folded sloppily, onto the roof of the car and half out of the vehicle. One of them, in the driver’s seat, was badly charred and the other in the passenger seat was less so. She was likely the person posing as the boy’s mother, as she was turned in her seat and her arm was extended toward the back of the car where her son had likely been sitting. The backseat door was open. Crowley walked around to the passenger side and flicked his eyes from the open door and into the woods away from the half burnt mess. There, lying prone in the underbrush, was a boy. Aziraphale suddenly rushed passed him and leaned down, likely forgetting in his kindness that the boy in question was scheduled to destroy everything on earth in a year’s time. Crowley hung back and regarded them.

The boy was classically beautiful, looking like a Greco-Roman sculpture of a God’s child. He had light golden curls and a smooth, light complexion. Crowley wrinkled his nose in disgust. Of course the Anti-Christ would be a pretty white boy— Most of them acted like they were little devils anyway, and those little buggers could get away with  _ anything _ . Gabriel and Beelzebub joined them in the clearing and Beelzebub seemed extremely pleased with themselves as they regarded the half charred vehicle. 

“Your work?” Crowley asked emotionlessly, nodding to the car. They smiled. 

“Yes.” 

Crowley gave them a long look, before flicking his gaze to Gabriel, who was watching Aziraphale hover uncertainly over the Anti-Christ with mild disinterest. Crowley walked over to Aziraphale and the boy and knelt down. 

“He’s going to… End everything, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, eyeing the bleeding mess of a boy with a mixture of pity and revulsion, “I can’t… I don’t know… I… I am very conflicted.” 

Crowley gazed at Aziraphale with an unreadable expression. He knew what was running through the angel’s head. His desire to save billions of humans from a terrible war was fighting with his desire to save a (presumably) innocent child. He looked down at the boy. Aziraphale hadn’t been inside this child’s head, hadn’t shared a consciousness with him like Crowley had. He could understand Azirphale’s hesitation but he needn’t have been worried. The kid was just that— A kid. 

“Well, aren’t you going to revive him?” Beelzebub sneered at Aziraphale, “he’s an innocent boy…” 

Aziraphale’s eyes hardened and he leaned back, glaring at them. “This is the Anti-Christ!” he turned to Gabriel, “You can’t expect me to… To help the wiles of the Fallen one!” 

“If you don’t,  _ I _ will,” Gabriel smiled thinly, “the humans  _ have  _ to be judged, Aziraphale. You know this. It’s the Great Plan, what we’ve all been working towards.” 

Aziraphale stared at him, astonished. 

Crowley listened but didn’t move, staring instead into the boy’s deathly pale face. Their superiors didn’t know that demons could still cause miracles and angels could tempt people. There was so much they didn’t know, and it was insulting for them to goad Aziraphale of all angels into choosing one boy over all of humanity. Why couldn’t Gabriel just do it? Why was it that Aziraphale was always heaven’s bitch? Crowley ground his teeth.

He hovered his hand over the boy’s chest and in an instant, his wounds were gone. Silence rang out in the forest, and in the distance, a rumble of thunder rolled in.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
“Hey, cool!” Adam exclaimed, grinning as he reached over Aziraphale’s lap to rummage in the glove box. He pulled out one of the many pairs of sunglasses Crowley had hidden there and threw them onto his face. He turned to Aziraphale and stuck out his tongue teasingly. He turned around in his seat and stared at Gabriel and Beelzebub, his tongue still sticking out. Beelzebub smirked and Gabriel gave the child a look that bordered on a sneer, his nose in the air. Aziraphale had gently carried the unconscious boy to the car and placed him in the front seat. Crowley suspected it was a protection thing— He trusted Crowley more than he trusted Beelzebub. Or Gabriel, for that matter, if he could read his angels right. The boy had come to as they drove away and looked around, confused, before grinning happily like he had been blessed with a big group of fairy godparents. He seemed to be content to just ride along in the car, something inside of him certain that everything else that had been broken in his life was now fixed. Crowley suspected he could see them for what they were. 

“You guys all dress weird,” he told the car at large, settling back down in his seat and looking to Crowley, who flicked his eyes to the child and smirked in amusement at the large sunglasses on his face. 

“You look like a rock and roll person or somethin’,” he commented lightly, swinging his feet and looking at Crowley. 

“Yeah. Rock and roll. That’s me,” Crowley said, his voice laced with mirth. He could feel Aziraphale’s exasperated look and gave him a winning smile. 

“So…,” the boy began conversationally, giving them each a look in turn, “Are you guys all friends?” 

A confused eruption of disgusted  _ No’s _ , one distressed  _ No _ and one rather cheerful  _ Absolutely, Yes _ exploded in the cab of the Bentley and Adam raised his eyebrows, trying to parse the relationships they shared. 

“So… You and you aren’t friends at all,” he concluded, pointing to Gabriel and Beelzebub, “But  _ you’re  _ definitely friends with him,” (he pointed from Crowley to Aziraphale), “And you’re also friends with him but you don’t wanna admit it.” 

Crowley raised his own eyebrows. The boy was  _ good  _ at this. Aziraphale tittered and Gabriel gave him a disappointed look. 

“I thought you said Crowley hadn’t noticed you, Aziraphale,” Gabriel commented, shaking his head, “that wouldn’t have been a… Lie, would it?” 

“You’re gonna think someone as good as Aziraphale is telling a lie because a kid told you he was?” Crowley interjected before Aziraphale could respond, “Damn, I thought you were smarter than that, Gabriel.” 

“Silence,” Gabriel commanded in his sickly sweet, diplomatic tones, “Beelzebub— Tell him, please.” 

“Shut up, Crowley,” they intoned, bored, “Just drive.” 

“Where are we going, my lord?” Crowley asked flippantly, turning off the Tadfield exit and getting onto a main motorway. 

“London,” they told them, cracking their neck, “You’re to take the boy to his uncle’s house.” 

Adam has been watching this entire conversation with amused interest which quickly turned to distressed alarm as he overhead the last part. He turned around frantically and stared at them. 

“What? Why can’t I go home?” he asked, suddenly unsure of himself. The sunglasses slipped off of his face and onto the floor. 

“Your parents are dead,” Beelzebub told him bluntly, gazing at him with a small smirk. In the driver’s seat, Crowley grimaced. Aziraphale swallowed hard and looked around to Gabriel, who was watching the whole thing like it were a mildly interesting tv program. 

“What… what do you mean?” the boy whispered, his eyes wide and his voice cracking. His eyes began to water and as he stared at Beelzebub. 

They smiled, impossibly wide. “Mummy and Daddy are dead. Gone forever. You’ll never see them again—“ 

“Stop it! Please! Stop!” Aziraphale burst out, looking imploringly to Gabriel, “Just stop!” 

“I’m sorry, Aziraphale. It has to be this way,” Gabriel said solemnly, reaching out to put what he thought was a reassuring hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. The angel seemed just short of shoving it off, but endured the unwanted touch anyways. Crowley’s nostrils flared and he sped up towards London, wishing he were anywhere but in this mess. The boy, in between Aziraphale and Crowley, had slowly sunk back on his haunches and turned around, stunned, tears slowly dropping onto his cheeks, his mouth slightly open. Crowley’s hand twitched and he wanted to punch Gabriel in his smug mouth and rip off Beelzebub’s face. 

Aziraphale was whispering but no sound was coming out. He stared resolutely ahead, but Crowley saw his fingers inch slowly toward the boy’s hand and placed it over top of his.  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Gabriel and Beelzebub left them. Their instructions were to drop the nine year old boy off at his uncle’s house in London and hunker down to wait until the Apocalypse. The final bang. The big To-Do. The boy in question was laid out in the backseat of the Bentley, his eyes dropping slowly as exhaustion began to overtake him. He was crying quietly, tears pouring down his cheeks and running along the leather seating. Crowley didn’t have the heart to stop him. 

_ “He wasn’t evil enough,” Beelzebub had shrugged, explaining why the boy’s parents had been killed, “he needed a catalyst. Something to make him hate.”  _

_ “Makes sense,” Gabriel had agreed, “highly unfortunate, it pains me to have to agree with Beelzebub here, but you can see their point.”  _

Crowley clenched his jaw, furious. He had been right. They had erased his memory. They had made sure he wouldn’t do anything to stop what they thought was inevitable. Clearly, however, it  _ wasn’t _ inevitable. The boy had been “not evil enough” by both standards. He’d been normal. He’d loved his parents, made cards for his friends birthdays, got in trouble for eating grapes off of an old man’s trellis. A normal human kid. 

“ _ Inevitable _ .” 

“So you agree with all this, then?” he accused Aziraphale, tense and furious. 

Aziraphale started and looked to Crowley, his entire body rigid. He had been on edge since Crowley had revived the boy, not disagreeing but obviously uncomfortable with the idea of the Anti-Christ destroying the world within a year’s time. 

“No!” Aziraphale assured, “I’m... I am...” 

He seemed to give up, thoroughly upset. 

“I’m... Confused.” 

“That makes two of us. Three, if you count the boy.” 

His quiet sobs could be heard throughout the car. Aziraphale turned his head slightly to look at the weeping child and a pained expression crossed his face. 

“I just wish... there was something we could do,” he mouthed quietly. 

Crowley was quiet for a while, thinking. It seemed to be a doomed prospect. Though he did not know it, Adam was a powerful, reality bending ticking time bomb of hormones. The likelihood he would choose _not_ to destroy a world in which his beloved parents, friends, and home were no longer in it was about nil. Then he got an idea. A foolish idea, especially if Upstairs and Downstairs found out— But an idea all the same. 

“What if.... We take him back to Tadfield... Don’t take him to his Uncle’s,” Crowley suggested, speaking quietly and hoping the boy wouldn’t hear, “we could... Help him.” 

Aziraphale looked scandalized and shook his head furiously. Crowley clenched his jaw and drove, speeding up. Of course Aziraphale would never go for it. After a few moments, however, he got a tentative response. 

“Well... he may just as well... Do what he’s expected... Regardless of where he lives for the next year... I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.... I can’t stand to see him like this...” 

Aziraphale swallowed hard. “Oh... Fine. Yes.” 

Crowley grinned at him and his heart swelled with love. _That_ was the Aziraphale he knew. 

“Adam,” Crowley began, not really sure how to bring it up but ploughing on anyways, “Aziraphale here and I were thinking... Well, we uhh...” 

“Would you like us to take you back to Tadfield?” Aziraphale interrupted kindly. 

The boy sniffed and looked to them with watery eyes. “Wh... What?” 

“We, that is to say, Crowley and I... Well, there’s no reason you have to go to your uncle’s... We could bring you back to Tadfield and ... Take care of you for a while.” 

The boy was silent for a long time. 

“Yeah,” he said quietly after a few moments, “I wanna... I wanna go back to Tadfield. I wanna be in my house... and see my friends... and... and—“ 

He took a deep shaky breath, trying to stop crying. 

“Oh... I’m sorry,” Aziraphale comforted quietly, turning in his seat and reaching down. He placed a palm on the boy’s head. Aziraphale had been very nervous about Crowley’s decision to revive him, but the boy’s tears over the loss of his parents had convinced him of his humanity, something Crowley knew from sharing the boy’s mind. He had an active imagination and a group of friends he was very close with. The boy had, through his sobs, asked for his parents’ bodies to be taken care of and Gabriel assured the anti-Christ that they would be welcomed in eternal peace in heaven. As he asked this, Beelzebub had glared at him as though he were misbehaving at the supermarket. Then they’d told them to take the boy to his uncle's house, and disappeared. 

Crowley flipped his sunglasses onto his head and rubbed his eyes. Traffic was light on the road going in and out of London and he turned around, heading back the way they came. His haw clenched and unclenched as they drove in silence. Adam’s sobs subsided for a while. 

“I can see what you both are,” he said eventually, his voice dull, “I’ve always been able to see people for what they are.” 

Aziraphale furrowed his brow. 

“What do you mean?” 

The boy blinked tiredly. “You... You’re like a bright white colour with gold rings and lots of eyes… And you’ve got two wings. Shouldn’t you have four? The other angel had four.”

Crowley, in the driver’s seat, let out a breath and flicked his eyes over to Aziraphale who had a haunted look on his face. 

“Y-yes, but I um. They were taken. I made a mistake.” 

The boy regarded him sadly. “You’re an angel… Angels don’t make mistakes,” he reasoned thickly, his voice groggy from crying. 

Aziraphale licked his lips, blinking rapidly. “Oh I’m.. I’m afraid we do,” he said quietly.

Crowley’s hand twitched on the steering wheel and he fought the urge to move his hand and place it on Aziraphale's knee.  _ His wings… They had stripped him of his wings?!  _ Aziraphale wasn’t nervous around the other angels,  _ he was afraid of them.  _ Crowley was at a loss trying to fathom what great wrong Aziraphale had done to deserve such a horrific punishment. 

“I gave away a sword. Something I shouldn’t have,” Aziraphale explained, as though the words sliced him as he spoke, “A long, long time ago.” 

Crowley wanted to rage and scream, but he stayed silent. Aziraphale had done this out of the goodness of his heart, for humans, which God had instructed the angels to love more than Herself, and the other angels had mutilated him for it. What right did they have? 

“And you’re a demon,” the boy continued, sitting up and regarding Crowley, “You look like a thundercloud, a big snake. You have… Four wings.” 

“Y-yeah,” Crowley muttered, still completely caught up in the horror that Aziraphale had endured mutilation. He had never mentioned it— His spirit hadn’t even seemed dampened by it the next time he saw him in Mesopotamia. Then again… The signs had been there. The angel had been perpetually shielding himself from Crowley, and he hadn’t had the thought to ask why. Aziraphale had gone silent beside him and was looking straight forward, no longer facing the boy, deep in his own thoughts. He likely had not wanted Crowley to know about any of this, but the boy couldn’t be blamed. He had otherworldly powers that he barely understood and couldn’t control. 

“I’m sorry,” Adam said lowly after a while, exhaustion edging his voice, “I’m sorry for whatever I did… Whatever it was.” 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley and his eyes were rimmed in tears, a quagmire of sadness, pity and shame radiating off of him in waves. Crowley felt sick in his spirit, disgusted with the way things had turned out. He, damned for asking why he had to love humans more than God, and Aziraphale punished by other angels for loving humans more than he respected their decree.

Aziraphale turned to the boy and Crowley pulled over. Aziraphale got out of the passenger side and opened the back door. The boy looked fearful. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he stammered, shrinking away from Aziraphale. The angel reached into the backseat and pulled the child towards him, covering him in a tight embrace. 

“You have nothing to be sorry about, Adam Young,” he whispered into the boy’s golden hair, “Nothing. Do you understand?” 

The boy was crying quietly again. Crowley watched the scene in his rear view mirror. His hands were shaking on the steering wheel as sickening images of Aziraphale’s punishment flashed unbidden in his mind’s eye.  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
The boy sat between them in the front seat for the rest of the drive back to Tadfield, eventually falling asleep and leaning his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder, covered in the angel’s coat. 

“I’m… I'm sorry you had to hear about that…About my… My wings,” Aziraphale apologized after a while, wringing his hands, “it was undignified, I didn’t want my foolish mistake—“ 

“Aziraphale,” Crowley cut across, his voice thick with emotion, “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said, repeating the words he had spoken to Adam a little while earlier. He couldn’t reach out because he was driving and he felt as though his hands were welded to the steering wheel, but he hoped his tone conveyed how he felt. Aziraphale swallowed and nodded slightly, a nervous smile coming onto his face for a few seconds before fading. 

“They… They hurt you, I can’t… You didn’t—“

“Crowley,” Aziraphale cut in, his voice trembling, “ _ please.  _ Not… Not now.” 

They drove in silence until they came into Tadfield. Gently, Aziraphale woke the exhausted boy and he gave them directions to his house. They pulled in the empty driveway and Crowley lifted the boy into his arms, carrying him into the locked house which magically opened when they went inside. He went upstairs and walked toward the door which had the name “ADAM” on it, hanging from a handmade wooden sign. Beneath it, a sign that read _KEEP OUT_ in childish handwriting was taped and half falling off the wooden door. Crowley pushed it open with his body and walked inside. It was a decent sized room, and completely covered in toys, models, and other knick knacks which seemed to be of Adam’s own creation. Aliens, cowboys, ray guns, foam swords, cardboard crowns, and other paraphernalia littered the room. Crowley set the boy down in bed and covered him in his blankets. He stood up straight and stared into the boy’s face, not bothering to hide his slitted pupils. The boy stared back, taking him in. 

“I wish this was a bad dream,” Adam whispered quietly, looking into Crowley’s eyes, “I want to wake up and this be a dream. I want my mum and dad.” 

Crowley blinked, long and slow. “I know.” 

Aziraphale knocked gently on the bedroom door and peeked inside. 

“May I come in, Adam?” 

The boy nodded and Aziraphale entered the room, hesitating before sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at the boy, sympathy etched into his face. Crowley stood by the headboard, his hands buried in his pockets so he wouldn’t fidget. 

“You’re.. You’re an angel… Can’t you… Can’t you make miracles?” the boy demanded, tears streaming down his cheeks, staring at Aziraphale with sudden intensity, “can’t you bring them back? Can’t you bring my mum and dad back to life?” 

“Oh, Adam,” Aziraphale sighed sadly, blinking rapidly to stop himself from tearing up, “I am so sorry. I can’t… I can help people who are injured, but… I can’t help those who have already passed…” 

The boy blinked rapidly and pulled his blankets up over his head. Crowley and Aziraphale gave each other a look as they heard Adam begin to loudly sob, half yelling in agony, beneath the blankets. Suddenly, he emerged, his face red and his hair mussed. He looked furious. 

“Get OUT! GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” he screamed, sobbing, “LEAVE ME  _ ALONE!”  _

Crowley and Aziraphale felt an otherworldly power push them as reality bent around them. They found themselves standing in the hall of the cottage outside of Adam’s bedroom door. Aziraphale gasped in distress and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. Adam was keeping them out. 

“Adam! Adam, please!” Aziraphale called anxiously, trying to open the door. 

Crowley put a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder and gently pulled him away. 

“Angel, let him be,” he whispered, “just... Just let him be for a bit."

Aziraphale was so anxious he was shifting his weight from foot to foot rapidly, wringing his hands tightly and looking past Crowley at Adam’s bedroom door. 

“I...I just…” 

Aziraphale stopped moving and his shoulders sagged. He looked down at his hands. 

“Oh Crowley... I don’t know,” he said, his voice breaking. His hands opened and he buried his face in them. His shoulders bobbed and Crowley felt his heart fall into a vice grip. Aziraphale had been brought to his breaking point, the place where his loyalty and his beliefs no longer coincided. The Great Plan was rolling out and this loving angel had been broken upon its wheel. Crowley swallowed hard and stepped forward, putting his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders. He bit his lip. He was never good with words. He never knew what he was supposed to say, when he was supposed to say it. He was witty— But when it counted, words seemed to lose all meaning. What could he say to a weeping angel, one who had spent the better part of their existence trying to do the right thing and being punished for it, trusting in ideas he believed in only to be disappointed? Crowley didn’t have anything to say, and “I told you so” was pointless and cruel. All he knew to do was to pull Aziraphale in closer and to wrap his arms around his shaking shoulders. It was the only thing he _could_ do.


	8. Chapter 8

Crowley had dozed off on the couch and awoke a short while later to the sound of pots and pans being moved around in the kitchen. Crowley blinked and sat up, smacking his lips and feeling thoroughly crumpled. He hadn’t meant to go to sleep, but he figured he must have been exhausted after his ordeal. He stretched widely and stood up, wandering into the kitchen where he found Aziraphale wearing a yellow apron, hard at work making what looked to be enough breakfast food for twelve people. A mound of eggs, toast and sausage sat on a plate in the middle of the table and he was pouring what looked to be pancake batter into a frying pan. Crowley flicked his eyes to the clock in the kitchen, which read half past seven. The summer sun had been up for about an hour now, and was streaming in through the small kitchen window and catching on Aziraphale’s white blonde hair as he concentrated. Crowley noisily pulled up a chair and unabashedly watched him. He put his hand in his pocket and played with the ring which was still (blessedly… Un-blessedly?) there. 

“Good morning, Crowley,” Aziraphale greeted cheerfully, his back to the room as he flipped the pancake he was making. His voice was completely chipper, the deep sadness of the previous night gone. Crowley blinked and shook his head slightly. Aziraphale was resilient, if anything. He got right back up again no matter what was thrown at him. 

“Mornin’,” Crowley greeted groggily, “I see you been busy.” 

“Yes, well… I thought the smell of food might entice our young charge from his room,” Aziraphale replied. Crowley tilted his head. There it was— The sadness. 

“Aziraphale, why… Didn’t you tell me about your wings?” 

Aziraphale froze and swallowed, staring down at the frying pan and refusing to turn around. He didn’t answer for a long while, until the pancake began to smoke and he jumped into action, adding butter and flipping the charring pancake to the other side. 

“I don’t know, Crowley,” he replied eventually, and it was the truth, “The obvious answer was that I was ashamed… but I’ve also tried not to be angry, but… Crowley, I am a bit… Angry, I mean. I know that I probably deserved it,” (Crowley made a sour noise from the other side of the room,) “but I can’t help but feel that I… Well… I-I don’t know!” 

Aziraphale turned around and hastily put the pancake on the already giant pile of food. 

“Why… Why wasn’t I damned, Crowley?” he asked desperately, holding the frying pan in one hand and a spatula in the other, “I’m… I don’t understand.” 

Crowley raised his eyebrows and couldn’t fathom how such a beautiful, kind being had gained such a twisted image of itself. 

“Because you’re made of love, Aziraphale,” Crowley answered, standing up from his chair and walking over to him, “You love everyone and everything equally, and you do the best you can. It might not be good enough for the other angels… But it’s clearly good enough for the Almighty, and…” 

Crowley swallowed, licking his lips, trying to find the words he wanted to say. He took Aziraphale gently by the shoulders and looked into his face. 

“And good enough for me.” 

His heart slammed in his chest as Aziraphale looked back into his eyes and blinked. He seemed to lift, like a wilted flower that had been given water, peeking up and smiling slightly. 

“Oh… Crowley. Thank you,” he whispered. 

Crowley bit his lip and found himself reaching into his pocket, holding the ring between forefinger and thumb. They were dead anyways, if their bosses found out. The least they could do was to experience a little bit of happiness before either Adam destroyed the world or Heaven and Hell destroyed them. He pulled the ring out— 

“Who made breakfast?” Adam’s voice asked thickly, appearing in the kitchen and rubbing his eyes. Crowley’s hand flew back into his pocket and his other hand flew off of Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

“Oh… Um! I did!” Aziraphale responded, quickly replacing the spatula and pan onto the stove. He left Crowley’s side to stand near Adam. The boy slumped into a chair and glared at them, wishing they were his mum and dad and not two otherworldly strangers. 

“I… Thought you might be hungry,” Aziraphale pressed on, making Adam a plate and sliding it over to him with a knife and fork, “I don’t know what you like, so I just.. Made a lot of different things.”

“Orange juice,” Adam snapped, stabbing his pancake moodily with a fork. Aziraphale swallowed and turned to the fridge. 

Crowley stepped forward and stopped him, giving him a look. He sat beside Adam and crossed his arms, watching the boy eat. 

“Right,” he said suddenly, taking the plate away from him. 

“Hey!” Adam yelled in anger. 

“Look, kid, I know you’re hurting and I know you’re upset and you want to treat people bad,” Crowley hissed at him, digging deep into his own past and trying to relate it in some way to the boy, “but you can’t. Aziraphale made you this breakfast ‘cause he cares about you and wanted you to feel better. You are  _ not,”  _ (he gave the boy a very cross look) “going to order him around. Or me, for that matter.” 

Adam looked down at the table and didn’t say anything, his face a mixture of confused emotions. 

Someone knocked on the door. 

Aziraphale blinked and looked at Crowley. “We haven’t… We haven’t made people think—Crowley!” 

“Calm down, just… One second—“ 

“I’ll get it,” Adam announced, stomping into the hall and flinging open the door. 

“Adam! There you are! Where  _ were  _ you?!” 

“We were extremely concerned, actually!” 

“Wensleydale thought you  _ died  _ or somethin’!” 

Three children had appeared at the front door of number 4, Hogback Lane. One boy was unkempt and had smudges of dirt on his face. The other looked as though someone had gone into an accounting firm and shrunk one of the employees to child-size. The third, a girl, had dark skin and sharp eyes, and was looking at Adam shrewdly. 

“What  _ happened  _ Adam?” the girl pressed, crossing her arms. 

“You really should tell us when you leave, Adam, we were very worried!” the bespectacled boy chimed in. 

Adam blinked, taking in the concern of his friends. He was the leader of The Them, the one who made up their games and decided what they did each day, and as such, he felt he shouldn’t cry. However, seeing his friends unlocked something he had desperately been missing: familiarity. He didn’t understand why his parents had to die, he couldn’t fathom how he had survived for so long being so badly hurt, he couldn’t begin to grasp why an angel and a demon were taking a personal interest in his well being, but what he  _ could  _ understand was Pepper’s anger, Wendsleydale’s nervousness, and Brain’s flippant attitude. They, at least, hadn’t changed a bit. 

He swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, Aziraphale and Crowley were standing beside him in the narrow hallway. The three children were frozen before him, as though time had stopped.

“What did you do to them?” Adam demanded angrily, spinning around to face Crowley and Aziraphale, “Don’t you  _ dare  _ hurt them!”

“We would never hurt them, Adam,” Aziraphale assured kindly, “I just… Stopped time for a moment, because we need to talk.” 

Adam pursed his lips and stared. 

“Well, dear… We have to cause a—A miracle of sorts to happen, you understand? Otherwise, you’ll be taken away from Tadfield. We need people to believe that we are your…” 

“Guardians,” Crowley supplied helpfully, steering clear from the word ‘parents.’ 

“Yes,  _ guardians _ … And that we’ve always been your guardians. Otherwise, people will become suspicious. Now… We need you to pretend as well. I know how this may make you feel, how difficult it’s going to be to pretend like we’ve always been here, but… You have to try. It’s our only choice. Do you think you could do that?” 

Aziraphale had a small, sad smile on his face. Beside him, Crowley crossed his arms, uncomfortable. He really wasn’t good at the whole talking thing. 

Adam thought for a while, nervously chewing his lip. 

“Can… Can I please tell Pepper and Wensleydale and Brian the truth?” he asked, his voice small. He looked down at his feet. 

“I need… I gotta talk to somebody about it… The truth.” 

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged glances. 

“Can you trust them?” Aziraphale asked. 

“Yes,” Adam said without hesitation. 

“Alright then,” Crowley agreed, “but if they blab I’m erasing their memories. Okay?” 

Adam nodded. 

Time began again. 

“—And we were really— Wait… How did you turn around so fast?” Pepper asked curiously, mid rant. 

Adam took a deep breath and looked at Crowley and Aziraphale in turn. He nodded. He heard the gasps of his friends behind him as the angel and the demon before him revealed themselves. They didn’t just appear as men— They allowed a bit of their true selves to manifest, their wings crowding the small hallway, Crowley’s slitted pupils glinting and Aziraphale’s body seeming to glow of its own accord. Adam turned around. 

“You guys want breakfast?” he asked gently, “I gotta…” 

He gulped, barely able to hold back his tears. “I gotta tell you somethin’.”   
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


“Well, I don’t think Adam looks like you enough, Mr. Crowley,” the bespectacled kid commented, adjusting his glasses and methodically cutting his pancakes, “I think he looks much more like Mr. Aziraphale.” 

“Yeah, they’re both blonde,” interjected Brian, his face completely covered in syrup and bits of egg, “and they’ve both got curly hair.” 

“Mr. Crowley doesn’t look like you, Adam. Plus,” began Pepper briskly, “Mr. Aziraphale seems like the kind of person who’d get married and have a kid before he realized he didn’t like girls.” 

Aziraphale was taken aback, and looked to Crowley in embarrassed astonishment. Crowley only grinned at him and chuckled. 

“Yeah, Mr. Crowley sort of looks like he wouldn’t care if people thought he didn’t like girls,” concluded Brian through a mouthful of food. 

Crowley nodded at Brian and raised his glass (filled with liquor Mr. Young had stashed away in the cupboard) and grinned. “That’s right.” 

Aziraphale tittered and was weighing the benefits of explaining the nebulous relationship with gender and physical form that ethereal and occult beings such as themselves shared with their bodies when the children picked up the conversation again. 

“I’ve read that liking boys or girls is something called a spectrum, actually,” Wensleydale said, taking a big swing of orange juice. 

“Gender is a construct,  _ obviously, _ ” Pepper cut in, repeating things her mother often said when talking with her friends. 

Crowley was enjoying himself immensely, listening to the children banter on, trying to help them come up with a good backstory for Adam’s new “parents.” So far, they had agreed that Aziraphale was to be Adam’s biological son from a previous marriage, which had broken up because Aziraphale had fallen in love with Crowley, who he met in London. They had moved to Tadfield to raise Adam together. 

(“We could just be roommates, you know,” Aziraphale had cut in nervously. 

Pepper had given them a confused look. “Aren’t you both already in love?” she had asked, “I thought you two were already together.”) 

The only person who was quiet was Adam, sitting at the table and picking at his food. Crowley looked to him as Aziraphale began poking about trying to clean up the mess around the other children and talking with them. Crowley leaned in toward Adam. 

“You don’t have to sit here, if you don’t want to,” he said quietly, putting a hand on Adam’s shoulder. 

Adam swallowed, looking up into Crowley’s face. “I don’t… I’m so…,” tears flicked down his cheeks suddenly and Crowley didn’t quite know what to do but he took his thumb and gently wiped the child’s tears, giving him a grim expression. 

“You don’t have to be okay,” he told the boy, “it’s okay not to be okay.” 

Adam nodded, bringing the sleeve of his pyjamas up to his face and wiping furiously. 

“Your friends are all here,” he continued, “and they care about you a lot. I can tell. You can trust them.” 

“Okay,” Adam said thickly, “Thanks, Mr. Crowley.” 

Crowley nodded, a little amazed that his speech had worked. He was doubtful going in, but it seemed that taking care of a human child constituted rather a lot of these kinds of speeches. He felt he was getting rather good at them, all things considered. Demons weren’t known for their communication skills, and Crowley felt this was a victory.

“I think making Mr. Aziraphale my real dad makes the most sense,” Adam said, speaking up for the first time in a while, “so… It’s gonna be hard but… I’m gonna try and call you ‘Dad’ in front of people, if that’s… If I remember.” He nodded towards Aziraphale, who gave him a small encouraging smile. Adam seemed to struggle but pushed through it. “I’ll call you Crowley,” he said, turning to the demon sitting beside him, “because I met you later.” 

“I don’t know if Mr. Tyler is gonna like that two men live together with a kid, actually,” Wensleydale said thoughtfully, “two old ladies moved in together and he said that they were lesbians and acted like someone kicked his dog.”

“I don’t care what Mr. Tyler thinks about two blokes living together,” Brian huffed, rolling his eyes, “He can shove it.” 

“Mr. Tyler is  _ stupid _ ,” Pepper declared, kicking her feet in her chair, “I’ve got two uncles and they have a kid.” 

Aziraphale regarded the children sitting at the dinner table and seemed to glow. He had mentioned that the entirety of Tadfield had a strange aura to it— Specifically, flashes of love that covered the whole area like a soft blanket which seemed to make the weather perfect, the fruit sweeter, the summers longer, and the Christmas Eves magical. He was clearing plates as if he’d cared for children his whole life, smiling adoringly at each one. Crowley smirked and shook his head, watching him. The kids, as they said, were alright.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short early update for yas, im on vacation at a cottage getting very sunburnt and very drunk and very fat off buckets of scallops and muscles. Formatting was weird in this one cause I had to post it from my phone so if you see some mistakes or words smushed together youll have to bear with me until I get back when I can fix it. thanks for sticking with this, youre all dear hearts

“Your car doesn’t have seatbelts,” Aziraphale snapped, annoyed, in the passenger seat. In the back, Adam was laughing loudly as Crowley took each turn on two wheels, sliding across the leather bench seating from one side of the car to the other. 

“It’s dangerous to have a young boy in the back like that, Crowley!” Aziraphale continued, shouting nervously, “I must insist!” 

“M’not gonna crash, Aziraphale,” Crowley growled, rolling his eyes, “why d’you think we haven’t crashed yet, in all the times I’ve driven you places?” 

He took a hairpin turn and nearly slammed through a signpost before righting himself again. Adam cackled with laughter as he was slammed bodily against the backseat door. 

“Plus… Adam’s having so much fun,” he said, giving Aziraphale a winning smile. 

Aziraphale pursed his lips and grabbed onto the handle above his head, flicking his eyes over to Crowley and letting out a small sigh of distaste. 

“I’m just… Nervous, Crowley.” 

“Don’t be,” said Crowley, “you’re safe. You’re both safe with me, I promise.” 

Crowley blinked and watched the road and tried to figure out where all this gentleness and love was coming from. Maybe it was Tadfield? Aziraphale said the entire area was coated in a blanket of love. Maybe once he finally got back to London, within the confines of the M25, he’d stop spouting stupid romantic lines at angels and giving pep talks to sad kids. He wasn’t entirely  _ against  _ spouting romantic lines at angels and giving pep talks to sad children, but he also wasn’t entirely  _ for  _ it. In general, he was just slightly uncomfortable with it all. Deeply in love, and deeply uncomfortable. 

The afternoon sun streamed down onto the countryside and Crowley had rolled down the windows to generate a breeze. Now that they had driven onto straighter roads, Adam was leaning against the side of the car with his head out of the window, his golden curls blowing in the wind. They had been in Tadfield for about a week, staying to be certain that nobody other than those in the know suspected anything had changed at number 4 Hogback Lane. So far, everyone they met acted as though the little family that lived there had been members of the community for some time now. By the end of the week, Aziraphale had been chomping at the bit to go back to London in order to retrieve some of his things— Namely, a few of his precious books. On Saturday morning, Crowley, Aziraphale and Adam climbed into the Bentley for a day trip to London.

Crowley ignored traffic signage all through Soho until he arrived outside of Aziraphale’s bookshop. Someone gave him a rude hand gesture as he cut in front of them and parked where they had been attempting to park. 

“Fuck off,” Crowley muttered under his breath. Aziraphale hit his arm gently and he heard Adam giggle in the backseat at his profanity. The odd trio got out of the car and followed Aziraphale inside of A.Z. Fell & Co. 

Adam’s eyes became as wide as saucers as he looked around to the piles of ancient books piled on every surface area of the shop. He spun around, gazing in awe at the towers of dusty tomes all around him. Aziraphale bustled into the back room and began to carefully gather his most prized books into an old leather bag. Crowley waltzed in and pushed a finger along a shelf, coming up with a coat of dust and sprinkling it on the equally dusty carpet with a small grimace. 

“You gotta clean this place, angel,” he called out. He thought he heard Aziraphale mutter something distractedly but he couldn’t tell. He turned around and blinked. He looked left. He looked right. 

Adam was nowhere to be found. 

Keeping a feeling of panic at bay, he began to wander casually around the bookshop, looking through shelves and corners like he were simply helping Aziraphale search for a few things. He had a feeling that Adam had either innocently wandered off to a part of the bookshop, or the little prick had buggered off out of the door and was gallivanting around Soho like it was the thing to do. He  _ was  _ the anti-Christ, and that meant a bit of rebellion now and again. He didn’t want to worry Aziraphale, so he gave one last look around the bookshop before Adam’s blue coat caught his eye and he stopped in his tracks. 

Adam was sitting innocently in a dark corner of the shop, a big, ancip. A ook spread out in was front of him, reading with, and he was thumb in his mouth. 

Crowley felt somewhat surprised— The kid had actually behaved.

“What’re you readin’?” Crowley asked, putting his hands in his pockets and coming to lean on a shelf near to where Adam was sitting. 

“I dunno! It’s like…Weird English. There’s a bunch of ‘F’s where there should be ‘S’s.”

Crowley peered down and put his sunglasses on his head. He flicked his eygazed at the page for a few moments and smiled. It was a 19th century reprinting of the Canterbury Tal _ es.  _

_ “Back then _ , that’s what ‘s’ looked like on the printing press,” he told Adam, “that’s an old one. Printed in 1673.”    
  
“That’s old,” Adam commented, in awe, looking up at Crowley. The demon smirked down at him in response.    
  
“Oh, it’s not  _ so _ old,” he said lightly.    
  
Aziraphale came bustling out of the back room and looked around the room and spotted them. He came over and peered down at Adam.    
  
“Oh, the  _ Canterbury Tales _ ! Did you know that book was banned in England after it was reprinted?” he said enthusiacally, kneeling down beside Adam.    
  
“Really?” Adam grinned, “Wicked. I heard of people bannin’ books but I’ve never read a banned one.”    
  
“Well, it isn’t banned anymore, of course, but it was for a brief moment.”    
  
Crowley rolled his eyes. “Come on, you nerds, I have things I have to get too, you know.”    


Aziraphale smiled happily at Adam, obviously pleased he had found a fellow book lover in the child they had decided to care for. He held out a hand and Adam handed him the heavy tome, which the angel placed in the leather bag he had hanging from his hand. Crowley blinked at the satchel, smirking slightly at a small black smudge of ash on its side, remembering . ked toward the door and Adam and Crowley followed. The boy and the angel were chatting animatedly, Aziraphale telling him about other books that had been banned. Crowley followed after them quietly, reminiscing. 

He hadn’t actually  _ meant  _ to reveal himself to Aziraphale that night in 1941. He had been perfectly happy to watch the angel from afar, keep tabs on him and his activities. He had actually come across him by accident, walking by on an errand when he’d seen the angel step surreptitiously into the church. Curiously, he had watched the entire confrontation and betrayal with the Nazis from the church windows. As soon as the woman had pulled the gun, his feet took him inside. As he’d hopped and skipped and jumped across the burning consecrated ground, his mind screamed and short-circuited, looking for a proper demonic reason for his behaviour that wasn’t simply because he couldn’t live without Aziraphale. 

In the present day, Crowley climbed into the driver’s seat of his Bentley and looked in the rear view mirror at Aziraphale, turned around in the passenger seat chattering away happily with the Anti-Christ. He shook his head slightly. He had seen a lot of things that any human wouldn’t believe, and had even been a part of creating some of them; but if someone had told him a year ago that he would be raising the Anti-Christ with Aziraphale posing as his fake husband, he would have asked for the dealer to who supplied whatever substance they were clearly on. 

He began driving, tuning out their conversation and honing in on Freddie Mercury’s voice which was crooning along to  _ My Melancholy Blues  _ and thinking back on the thousands of years that he had shared with the angel sitting beside him. 

_ “Wouldn’t that be funny? If I did the good thing and you did the bad?”  _

Crowley thought to his houseplants, their verdant beauty, their shining leaves, their absolute terror of his wrath. He suddenly felt like he didn’t need them anymore, and the feeling was empty yet strangely freeing. He suddenly felt that if they were to get a little brown while he was gone, or die altogether… It wouldn’t be so bad. 

If they were successful, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is a homophobic slur in this chapter, just so ya know! don't want it to be a surprise. love ya'll <3

“Okay… So everyone doesn’t know any better and thinks you’ve both been living here with me for seven years,” Adam recounted, pacing in front of Aziraphale and Crowley, who he had sat down on the edge of the bed in the master bedroom, “so nobody should say anything. But— You both have to change your clothes... No offense,” he tacked on hastily. 

“Pardon me?” 

“ _We wot!”_

“Just for the garden party,” Adam assured them, stopping his anxious pacing and raising his hands, “The thing is, you both dress like you’re an angel and a demon. You gotta look _more normal._ ” 

“What— This is normal!” Aziraphale exclaimed defensively. 

“You look like you travelled through time,” Adam told him, ploughing on. Crowley grinned at Aziraphale, mocking him. 

“And you look like a failed rock star or somethin’.” 

“What?! I look like a _successful_ rockstar!” 

“My point is, you both have to look a bit plainer to blend in.” 

“Fine! Fine,” Aziraphale sighed, “what… What should I do?” 

“Well, the thing is, it’s the dead of summer and you’re wearin’ that big wool coat… Maybe lose that. And definitely… You should lose the vest.” 

“Oh, dear… But I do like the coat and vest—“ 

“Take it off, angel,” Crowley jeered, a teasing smile on his face. 

Aziraphale glared at him and stood up, taking off his coat and vest and hanging them carefully in the closet. They had gathered Adam’s parents’ items one evening while the boy slept and had put them in the attic for safekeeping, placing a quick charm on them so moths and other vermin would stay away. 

Adam regarded Aziraphale for a moment. “It’s pretty good, but maybe you should roll your sleeves up a bit. The bow tie is okay, it suits you I think.” 

Crowley raised an eyebrow. 

“What about… _This._ ” 

He snapped his fingers and Aziraphale’s clothes changed before him. He normally wouldn’t dare change Aziraphale’s clothing on him, but he was feeling cagey and flippant today. He felt restless in Tadfield. There wasn’t much going on. 

Aziraphale gasped and swatted him on the shoulder angrily. 

“Hey, that’s perfect!” Adam exclaimed, taking him in. 

Crowley would never make Aziraphale wear clothing he would be uncomfortable in, and had simply taken his look and modernized it a bit. The angel was now sporting a light blue linen button up shirt which had summer-appropriate short sleeves. His bow tie remained unchanged but he changed the fit of his trousers ever so slightly so that they were a little more form fitting and made of a more modern material, which was thinner and would be more comfortable on a human body that minded the heat. He left the gold wingtips— He’d been going for a 50s inspired look and they completed the ensemble. 

Aziraphale looked down at himself and then looked in the mirror. 

“Ah—oh… Well, that isn’t so bad,” he said, turning around and taking in his appearance. 

“You look adorable,” Crowley assured him, standing up from the bed and going to leave the room. 

“Nice try, foul fiend,” Aziraphale called out, extending an arm, “Your turn!” 

He snapped his fingers and Crowley staggered slightly, feeling his clothing ripple across his body. 

He looked down and clicked his tongue in annoyance. All his accessories had disappeared and he found himself wearing a pink and blue Hawaiian shirt and denim shorts that went to the middle of his thighs. 

“Oh, come on!” he complained, holding out his shirt, “Seriously? A Hawaiian shirt? And _short shorts?”_

“You both look great!” Adam complimented, looking them over and grinning, “the handsomest Dads in Tadfield.” 

Aziraphale gave him a winning smile.

“Ugh,” Crowley groaned, rolling his eyes, “Adam, do we really have to go to this garden party?” 

“Yes,” Adam said firmly, his gaze stony, “I’ve gone every year since I was a baby and I’m not missing it.” 

Crowley turned his head and sighed, walking out of the room. 

Aziraphale stepped forward and smiled. “You could wear something nice too, if you like,” he told Adam kindly, “And don’t mind Crowley— He doesn’t like people much.” 

“I don’t think demons would like people much,” Adam mused. He seemed to bite his lip for a while before looking into Aziraphale’s face. “Does he like… Me? He’s been nice to me but…” 

“He does like you, Adam. Very much,” Aziraphale assured, smiling. 

Adam seemed a little unsure, but nodded. He came closer and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s middle, resting his curly blonde head against the angel’s belly. 

“Thanks,” Adam whispered, “you’ve been really good to me, and you didn’t have to be.” 

“Oh!” Aziraphale exhaled, startled but pleased. He gingerly wrapped his arms around the boy in response. 

“I know I’m supposed to be older an’ stuff and not be such a baby, but… what I miss most about Mum is when she’d hug me… You know?” 

Aziraphale blinked rapidly and opened his mouth several times, trying to find the words he should say to comfort the child who was slowly getting his front wet with his tears. Coming up with nothing, he simply pulled the boy closer. They stood together for a few moments. 

Adam stepped away and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry,” Adam apologized, “I know you don’t like to be touched.” 

There was no point in hiding from Adam, because his natural inherent abilities made him clairvoyant to whatever was around him. He’d known he was supposed to have four wings instead of two, and that they were taken from him. 

“You’re the best angel I’ve ever seen,” Adam said reassuringly, “the other one was mean and he didn’t care about humans. Aren’t angels supposed to care about us?” 

Aziraphale swallowed and began to wring his hands. He genuinely didn’t know the answer anymore. He was a being of love— He loved humanity and he loved this boy— and he couldn’t fathom how any angel could consider destroying them over an old score they felt they had to settle with Hell. 

“We love all humans, Adam. Just in different ways.”

Adam didn’t look convinced, but let it go. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on between the other demon and the other angel and why they were so mean, but if Earth had angels and demons on it that cared about humans then that was good enough for him.  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
An angel, a demon, and the Anti-Christ To Be showed up in an open field just outside of Tadfield around two o’clock in the afternoon. August was waning warm and sweet, and the scent of ripening apples was drifting on the hot breeze toward them. Crowley parked the Bentley near the road, where a multitude of cars were already parked, and got out, surveying the field full of people, wooden tables piled with food, children screaming and running, and a couple of fellows gathered around with beers in their hands with some trepidation. He was certainly not afraid of any of these people, but the thought of having to actually _socialize_ with them for the next eight hours seemed like an unbearable prospect. Aziraphale crawled out of the car beside him, holding onto a casserole dish filled with some sort of creation he’d spent the entire morning preparing. He was grinning from ear to ear, gazing across the field of humans laughing and eating. This was so much more his thing than it was Crowley’s.  
  
Adam scrambled out of the car and barely had time to close the door before he took off like a bat out of hell toward the field, calling out his friend’s names.  
  
“Oh, have fun Adam! Be careful, please!” Aziraphale called after him uselessly, trying to wave with the heavy dish in his hands.  
  
“He’ll be fine,” Crowley said sourly, coming to stand beside Aziraphale. They picked their way through the cars and onto the grass of the flat field, walking uncertainly toward the mass of tables piled with community-gathered foodstuffs.  
  
“Oh, I ah… That is to say, _we_ … Brought a casserole!” Aziraphale announced shyly to a small circle of women standing near a table and talking. One of them, bespeckled and somewhat nerdy looking, turned around and a grin grew on her face and she regarded them.  
  
“Oh! Mister Young! We’re so happy you finally decided to come!”  
  
Aziraphale smiled and nodded nervously. The women were on him in an instant, introducing themselves, helping him find a place for the dish, and chatting. After a few minutes, Aziraphale turned to Crowley, who was moodily picking at a piece of food, and introduced him to them.  
  
“Ladies, this is Anthony Crowley, my… Um… Partner,” he smiled anxiously, gesturing to Crowley who straightened up, and gave them a smile. For Aziraphale’s sake.  
  
The bespectacled woman extended her hand, shaking his enthusiastically.  
  
“Oh, my name is Jane Wensleydale, and this is Heather Green, and this is Cora Simon,” she introduced kindly, smiling as each woman extended their hand to him and he shook.  
  
“I believe your son Adam is friends with my son,” she continued conversationally, turning to Aziraphale, “Jeremy?”  
  
“Oh, _yes!_ ” Aziraphale exclaimed enthusiastically, “Of course! And you wouldn’t happen to be young Brian’s mother, and you little Pepper’s mother?”  
  
Crowley had heard enough. He gave them each a cursory polite nod and wandered off to another table. A particular scene caught the corner of his eye, and he spotted four men standing away from view of the party and surreptitiously passing an unlabeled bottle around. Crowley smirked. Now _this_ was his kind of garden party. He meandered over to the group of men, who saw him coming and hid the bottle.  
  
“Hey, mate,” one of them greeted, trying to siphon off suspicion, “How’s it goin’?”  
  
“Hey, _mate,_ ” Crowley responded, stopping near them and smirking, piling his hands in the pocket of his shorts (which, to his mind, were embarrassingly short), “Is there any place ‘round here a bloke could get a drink of something a little uhhh… Stronger?”  
  
The man holding the bottle behind his back smirked and pulled it out, holding what was undoubtedly moonshine in front of him and offered it to Crowley.  
  
“You came to the right folks.”  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ  
  
  
  
Several hours later, Crowley was extremely drunk and had spent a good chunk of the last hour lying beneath a thick, ancient oak tree, his sunglasses crooked. He had picked a few wildflowers and was sloppily weaving them into a circle as Adam, Pepper, Brain, and Wensleydale looked on, munching on a menagerie of sweets they had taken from the picnic tables. He was even moodier than when he had arrived. The men who had given him the moonshine were quite a bit of chaotic fun for a while, until they had pointed across the field at Aziraphale, who was giggling and enjoying his eighth glass of wine with the ladies of the village.  
  
“Don’t understand why poofters act like that. It’s fuckin’ unnatural,” one of them sniffed drunkenly.  
  
“Fuckin’ faggot,” another one agreed, spitting on the ground.  
  
Crowley turned to them, cold fury boiling in his body. He hated that he was undercover, hated that he couldn’t boil their flesh and run off into the night, content in his revenge.  
  
“ _That faggot,_ ” Crowley hissed, letting his voice emerge from its human confines, lilting eerily, “is my _fianccccce._ ”  
  
The men, too drunk to understand what was going on, staggered back from him, the swagger and certainty draining from their eyes quicker than the blood from their faces. They went white as their souls heard something horrific and inexplicable in his voice, echoing deep in their bodies in a way they couldn’t comprehend. One of them fell as though he had been punched, and another slammed against the trunk of a nearby tree as though he were being pinned. One of them pissed himself, a biological response to whatever ancient terror had just dove down into his body and grabbed his beating heart.  
  
“SHUT UP!” came a higher pitched, enraged voice from behind them, no less terrifying and no less ancient. The men scrambled and turned around to face the short figure of Adam Young, who, like the demonic force he truly was, stood like a wall behind them. “ _Go away_ ,” the child commanded, his voice low and his eyes glowing strangely. Crowley felt that reality was bending around them, twisting, and after a few moments the men were gone. Crowley, standing across from Adam in the now empty space near the ancient oak tree, gazed at the child with newfound appreciation and, though he loathed to admit it, apprehension and fear. Adam was trembling and big, fat tears were forming in his eyes and falling into the grass, his hands balled into fists at his side.  
  
“Adam,” Crowley intoned, his voice having lost its drunken edge from his fury, “It’s okay… It’s done.”  
  
Adam nodded as his friends joined him, running up to stand beside him.  
  
“Are you okay, Adam?” Wensleydale asked gently.  
  
“Yeah, m’fine,” he said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, “Some blokes were just mean about Mr. Aziraphale.”  
  
“Ugh, was it Dan Tyler and his stupid friends?” Brian asked.  
  
“Yeh,” Adam muttered, sitting down sadly in the grass.  
  
“He is so _ignorant_ ,” Pepper groused, rolling her eyes and flopping down in the grass beside Adam.  
  
“No wonder, with a nosy annoying Dad like that.”  
  
After a brief pep talk, his friends had gone and retrieved copious amounts of sweets from the picnic tables and Crowley had absentmindedly began weaving a flower crown from daisies he plucked from beneath the shade of the oak tree. The sun had begun to sink below the tree line across the field and the frogs had begun to sing in the ponds in the forests. Crowley looked around and saw that everyone else had gathered near the lanterns hanging from the tents and trees near the food tables and he was alone with the four children as they ate. He took his sunglasses off, tiring of them for the moment, and appreciated the sky as he perched the flower crown on his knee.  
  
“Why don’t you kids go and see Aziraphale?” he suggested quietly, turning slightly to reach out and ruffle Adam’s hair, “He probably has something yummy you can add to your plate.”  
  
“Okay,” Adam agreed, piling what little sweets they had left onto a plate. His friends began to make their way across the field toward the crowds of people, and he turned to Crowley.  
  
“Thanks, Mr. Crowley,” he said quietly.  
  
“For what?”  
  
Adam shrugged, twisting his lip, not having the words to say what he wanted to say. He came near to where Crowley was sitting and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He paused there for a few minutes, looking up into the sky, which was becoming a dazzling array of pinks and oranges, and smiled.  
  
“You should go and see Aziraphale,” he told Crowley, imitating him, “I bet you he has something yummy for you.”  
  
With a cheeky grin, the kid ran off after his friends and Crowley stared after him, wondering if he really was a nine year old or if they’d be given an adult in a child’s body.  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
After a while, Crowley decided he _would_ go and see Aziraphale. He was, after all, his self-declared “fiancee.” He wandered through the crowds and spotted him, sitting at a table with nearly every old woman in the village, laughing, red in the face from the bottles of wine he had been sharing with them, and was in the process of enthusiastically swapping an old recipe for strawberry jam he had learned centuries ago from a woman in a Scottish village.  
  
“Yes, my grandmother always brought it _just_ to a boil, not all the way,” Aziraphale told them, his voice jolly and slurred, and the women around him nodded. Aziraphale seemed to sense Crowley slithering up toward him as he turned around, his wine sloshing in his glass slightly, and grinned fondly at him, throwing up his arm.  
  
“Oh, there’s my dear Crowley!” he cried happily. Crowley came up behind him and put his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders, one of them holding the flower crown he had absentmindedly woven by the oak tree.  
  
“I hope he isn’t bothering you ladies,” Crowley teased, smiling and raising an eyebrow passed his sunglasses. (Aziraphale had cleverly spread a lie among one Violet Daniels, an older woman with a penchant for gossip and never keeping her mouth shut, that Crowley had an eye condition which made him sensitive to light. It had only taken the duration of the party, but now everyone looked to Crowley wearing sunglasses in the halflight without a backwards glance).  
  
“Oh no, not at all!” the same Violet Daniels called out genially, her voice slightly slurred from the alcohol in her hand, “Mr. Young is _delightful_ , Mr. Crowley! He was just sharing his grandmother’s recipe for jam.”  
  
Aziraphale seemed to wiggle with delight as the women around the table complimented him. Crowley nodded, smiling for real this time. Of _course_ Aziraphale would fit right in with these older women–– They shared the same interests.  
  
“He’s something, isn’t he?” Crowley continued, patting Aziraphale’s shoulder.  
  
“Oh you are _so lucky,_ Mr. Crowley,” one of the women agreed, giggling and swatting Aziraphale on the arm, who seemed to be vibrating from the attention.  
  
“ _Extremely lucky,_ ” Crowley corrected her, and she laughed, putting her hand over her chest, “He’s so…” ––Crowley pulled the crown of daisies from his other hand and placed it on top of Aziraphale’s unruly curls–– “ _Handsome_ , isn’t he?”  
  
Aziraphale’s face became an interesting shade of beet red and he tittered, wringing his hands and smiling, embarrassed. “Oh, stop, Crowley… What did you put on my head now?” he asked, half-chiding, half-pleased, as he reached up to his head and pulled down the flower crown. He looked at it for a few moments and then replaced it to the top of his head. “Oh… Oh you, foul fiend, you… Stop,” he giggled, adjusting the crown on his head, “You fool.”  
  
“Fool for you,” Crowley muttered, smiling at the ladies, who all went into giggles at his overly romantic behaviour. Before he could stop himself, he leaned his head down and was planting a kiss onto Aziraphale’s burning cheek. He was filled with moonshine and the sweetness of the summer night and he couldn’t help himself but sip from the ambrosia of Aziraphale’s skin. He smelled like honey, the kind he loved to put in his tea, and the feeling of his skin on his lips was like a balm.  
  
He pulled away, too soon (for it would always be too soon when he got to be close to Aziraphale), and lifted his head, regarding the women who gazed on at them with roses on their minds, their eyes shining with the beauty of Aziraphale’s love, which he had unintentionally let shine through his corporeal form. It was like looking at gold. Crowley’s hands were hot as they held the angel’s shoulders and Aziraphale had frozen in astonishment and joy at Crowley’s kiss. He recovered quickly, bringing a hand to his cheek and laughing, his eyes squeezing shut, his entire spirit seeming to burst with light.  
  
Crowley had never felt blessed as an angel, because he hadn’t known what it was like to be damned. Now that he did, he knew that if God still had love in her being, this is what it would feel like.


	11. Chapter 11

Summer ended in Tadfield with a month of pleasant, crisp September mornings. Adam had returned to school, beginning his sixth year alongside Pepper, Brian and Wensleydale. Soon enough, the leaves began to change and October was upon them in a swirl of orange, red, and yellow. Crowley, making himself a coffee and wrapped in a bathrobe, frowned. He was watching through the window as Aziraphale, out in the garden, was preparing the plants for the upcoming winter, covering their wilting stalks and raised beds with a layer of leaves he’d collected from the yard. Adam had been in a foul mood all morning, stomping around the house and glaring at them. At first, Crowley thought that perhaps Adam simply wasn’t much of a morning person, but the reason for his sour mood had revealed itself when he’d glanced at the kitchen calendar in passing. 

Written on it in handwriting he now recognized as Deirdre Young’s were the words “ _Adam’s Tenth Birthday!”_ on the 21st, a Friday, in two days’ time. He had watched the boy leave out of the front door for the school bus, trying to think of a good way to break the news to Aziraphale that the child’s birthday was only two days away. He knew the second he revealed this fact Aziraphale would become practically feral, going into a full on panic about making sure the boy had the best possible birthday he could have. Crowley sipped his coffee and shook his head. There was nothing for it. He wandered out into the garden and stood on the step.  
  
Aziraphale was happily sprinkling some leaves on the flowerbeds, on his knees in a light grey sweater, his hands in the dirt, the sun on his hair. He looked so peaceful.   
  
“Aziraphale, Adam’s birthday is on Friday,” Crowley called, a hand in the pocket of his robe, taking a small sip of coffee.   
  
Aziraphale froze and Crowley could practically see the words he had just spoken enter his ears and course through his body only to be expelled in a burst of frenetic energy as the angel leaped into the air and spun around, dropping a trowel with a thud into the grassy garden and flying to Crowley.   
  
“It’s in _two days?!_ ” Aziraphale yelped, grabbing Crowley by his bathrobe.   
  
Crowley rolled his eyes and edged away from Aziraphale’s iron grip on his clothing.   
  
“ _Yes,_ two days,” he confirmed, annoyed.   
  
“That’s– Oh, that’s not enough time! We– We have to bake and– and– Invite guests and–”   
  
“Aziraphale–”   
  
“He’ll be wanting presents, too! We don’t even know what he likes, and– Oh it’s– It’s going to be his first birthday without his parents and–”   
  
“Aziraphale, I–”   
  
“I don’t even know what kind of cake he likes, oh for Heaven’s sake! I have to go–”   
  
“ _Angel!”_   
  
Aziraphale paused and looked up, blinking into Crowley’s face.   
  
“Stop panicking. Just _ask him what he wants to do._ He might not even want all that shit,” Crowley reasoned, shrugging.   
  
“Oh, but– But surely he’ll be wanting a party!”   
  
“Then throw a party, angel. Chuck his friends in the living room with a movie or chuck them in the garden.”   
  
“What– What about his present? I haven’t heard him mention anything and–”   
  
“Just– _Ask him,_ ” Crowley repeated, looking into Aziraphale’s eyes over the rim of his sunglasses and taking him by his shoulders.   
  
Aziraphale seemed to swallow a few times before nodding.   
  
“Yes–Yes. You’re right. Alright.”   
  
“Calm down.”   
  
“Yes, calm down… Calm.”   
  
“It’ll be fine.”   
  
“Yes… Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” Aziraphale muttered nervously. Crowley dropped his hands and lifted his head, sliding his shades back into place. He took a sip of coffee and watched as Aziraphale wrung his hands, his tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly as he thought about what to do next.  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
  
Adam came home after school and his mood was no more improved. He kicked off his shoes and went immediately upstairs, passing by Aziraphale and Crowley sitting in the kitchen, a miasma of negativity seeming to enshroud him as he went. He barely acknowledged them before slamming the door to his room.   
  
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale fretted, looking toward the stairs, “Should we go up?… Perhaps talk to him?”   
  
Crowley cracked his neck and sighed deeply, clucking his tongue.   
  
“Yeah… _Yeah_ ,” he replied defeated, standing up and gesturing toward the stairs, “I’ll follow you.”   
  
They went upstairs and stood outside of Adam’s door, blinking at one another and trying to come up with clever and helpful things that would improve the boy’s outlook, but coming up with nothing good. They knocked and decided to wing it.   
  
“Adam,” Aziraphale said gently, peeking around the door, “Are you… Are you alright, dear?”   
  
“I’m _fine_ , leave me alone,” Adam called back, his voice somewhat strangled. He was sitting on his bed, his back to the door.   
  
“Well… We’ll leave you alone, we just… We were wondering what you would like to do for your birthday this Friday?”   
  
Adam turned around slowly and he looked like he’d been crying. He didn’t answer for a while, looking down at his bed and playing absently with the bedsheets.   
  
“May we come in, Adam?” Aziraphale pressed gently.   
  
Adam nodded slowly, and Aziraphale came into his bedroom, looking around. Crowley, much more comfortable with standing by the door, leaned on the doorframe and flipped his glasses onto his head. Aziraphale took in the many knick knacks, toys, and other models that Adam had made himself and smiled. He lifted one, what looked to be a spaceship, from the shelf and sat down beside Adam on the bed.   
  
“Did you make this yourself?” he asked Adam, his voice light.   
  
Adam nodded.   
  
“It’s very good,” the angel complimented, looking up at all the other things Adam had made, “No wonder the Them like it when you make up their games. You have a big imagination.”   
  
Crowley, in the doorway, snorted softly. The kid had a great imagination alright; one that could bend reality if it so chose. Aziraphale gave him a displeased look before continuing.   
  
“What if we got you some more supplies to help you build more lovely things like this?” he asked, smiling and leaning back, the handmade spaceship on his lap, “That way, you can come up with even better games for you and your friends to play together. Would that be alright for a birthday present?”   
  
Adam, his head still bowed, looked up at Aziraphale and nodded.   
  
“Alright, dear,” Aziraphale said softly, standing up and placing the spaceship back on its place on the shelf, “Well– We’ll leave you alone then, if that’s what you’d like.”   
  
Aziraphale made his way to the door. Adam spoke up.   
  
“I’d just like a chocolate cake… And to play with my friends. That’s all,” he said quietly, “That’s all I want on my birthday.”   
  
Aziraphale turned and smiled, nodding. “Of course.”   
  
Crowley stood to the side and let Aziraphale pass. He turned to Adam, who caught his eye. Crowley stared unblinkingly back. His feet took him into the room and he stood at the foot of Adam’s bed. He broke eye contact and looked out the window. They sat in silence for many moments before Crowley looked at Adam, giving him a small, sad smile, and walked out of his bedroom, closing the door behind him.  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


Aziraphale cleared away the plates smeared with chocolate frosting and looked around his shoulder. Seeing as he was alone in the kitchen, he snapped his fingers and the dishes righted themselves, clean, dried and on the rack. He looked about the tidy cottage kitchen, his hands on his hips, and smiled satisfactorily. He heard a giggle from the living room and leaned his head to the left to peer in.    
  
Adam was spread out on the floor, surrounded by craft supplies and a myriad of papers, markers, and paints, constructing something. He was concentrating intensely, meticulously gluing a popsicle stick to another popsicle stick. Aziraphale had no clue what the boy was actually making, but the sight of him so engaged in his work made him happy. He watched as Adam leaned back, lifting the mass of popsicle sticks into the air and smiling at his creation. On the couch, Crowley was watching him lazily, curled up on his side and teasing him.    
  
“It looks like a mess of sticks, is what it looks like,” the demon commented, smirking and extending a long arm to poke the creation with a thin finger.    
  
“You gotta be  _ patient _ ,” Adam assured him, putting his structure of sticks down on the rug and reaching forward to grab construction paper, “You gotta build a foundation before you build a house.”    
  
“How wise of you,” Crowley muttered under his breath.    
  
Aziraphale took a deep, content breath. He loved watching Crowley interact with Adam. Though he never said anything about it , it had always been  _ his _ idea to rescue the boy, to give him a better life. Aziraphale knew Crowley had a lot of love for Adam, deep down. He was difficult to dislike, even in his foul moods. Adam was a being of passion, and was prone to moodiness and dark thoughts. Equally, he was a loving child who cared deeply about those around him. Aziraphale felt that Adam and Crowley had rather a lot in common in that regard. Aziraphale took his cocoa and joined them in the sitting room, taking his place in Mr Young’s armchair by the fire and settling himself in. He’d likely sit here all night, reading, after Adam had gone to bed.    
  
“What is it you’re building, Adam?” he asked interestedly, taking a sip of his drink.    
  
“Oh, it’s a  _ surprise _ , angel,” Crowley drawled, flicking his slitted pupils to Aziraphale in the armchair, “we aren’t allowed to know yet.”    
  
“Ah, I see,” Aziraphale smiled, leaning back and getting comfortable. He flicked his eyes to the clock, which read 8pm.    
  
The trio sat in relative silence for a couple of hours, Aziraphale reading and Crowley dozing, and Adam busily creating whatever it was he was trying to create. Around ten, Aziraphale ushered Adam to bed.    
  
“But I’m not  _ sleepy _ ,” Adam complained, standing up, “I’m all inspired. I wanna keep making.”    
  
“Your project will still be there in the morning when you wake up,” Aziraphale told him firmly, “And tomorrow is Saturday, so you can work on it all day long if you like.”    
  
“Fiiine,” Adam sighed. He gathered up his craft supplies and walked up the stairs, leaving bits of cut construction paper in his wake.    
  
Aziraphale busied himself getting Adam ready for bed, and when the boy was finally settled in his room, he came back downstairs and cosied himself back in the chair.    
  
“You know he’s gonna keep working on that in his room,” Crowley said, his eyes closed.    
  
Aziraphale sniffed. “Yes, well. At least he’s near his bed when he gets tired. It isn’t necessarily about enforcement so much as routine, or so I’ve heard.”    
  
Crowley hummed.    
  
“You think… You think he had an okay birthday?” Crowley asked quietly after a while.    
  
Aziraphale looked up from his book, and blinked slowly.    
  
“Well… I’m not sure. He was quite sad all day. I felt like he wasn’t moody like he sometimes is, but he seemed like he was missing something… Which I suppose, he certainly was.” Aziraphale had been thinking the same thing.    
  
“Yeah.”    
  
They were both quiet for a while.    
  
“Crowley?”    
  
“Yeah, angel?”    
  
Aziraphale was quiet for a few moments, licking his lips and thinking of what he wanted to say.    
  
“Never mind… It’s nothing,” he said. Aziraphale blinked and looked down at his book, not really seeing any of the text that was printed there. The things he wanted to say to Crowley would complicate everything, and if he were honest with himself, all he wanted in that moment was Crowley’s company, to bask in his relaxed and easy aura. Aziraphale was a worrier by nature, insecure and doubtful in his conviction that he was doing the right thing and his relationship with Crowley often made him nervous for many reasons. It had been rare, over the course of the six thousand years they had been dancing around one another, that he didn’t feel at least a  _ little _ stressed when they were together. He was still nervous and fearful, but he wanted to take every opportunity he could possibly take to enjoy quiet moments of Crowley’s time. He looked up to where his companion was lounging on the sofa, his eyes closed, and Aziraphale felt a burst of affection for him. His reddish hair was curled into his face and he looked as though he were enjoying some kind of pleasant dream.    
  
Aziraphale smiled tenderly and looked back down at his book.


	12. Chapter 12

Aziraphale had taken to reading in a small study he had cordoned off in the living room during the nights while Adam slept, and Crowley had taken to lying down naked in the master bed and dozing, sometimes sleeping, and sometimes just staring at the wall to clear his mind. He wasn’t used to the calm that pervaded Tadfield, the idyllic countryside, the sweetness of the smells blowing through the open window. It had been so long since he had been in a place surrounded by more trees than buildings. Seeing as humans were much easier to tempt than trees, he and Aziraphale had spent a lot of their time on earth in the ever changing massive towns and cities that cropped up over the centuries. He felt like he was back in the Garden of Eden, a visitor in an earthly, holy place, surrounded by the lush splendours of life. In a certain way Tadfield made him nostalgic and sad, and in another it made him feel bright and new again, childlike and refreshed. It was now late November, and it was a beautifully crisp one— The weather thankfully attesting to some form of love still deep in Adam’s heart. 

This particular night found him curled up in bed, a blanket carelessly thrown over his lower body, ruminating on the past few months in the darkness of the room. He thought to Adam and wondered if they were making any impact at all. He had recently gotten in trouble at school for beating up another gang of kids just because they had ‘looked at him funny.’ Adam had a deep, gaping wound filled with rage in his heart and it seemed to grow deeper every day. During the night, down the hall, Crowley’s keen hearing could pick out the child’s quiet weeping. Adam hadn’t cried in front of them for almost a month, always seeming relatively chipper, but his growing list of increasingly violent behaviours was getting to be a concern. 

Someone knocked on the bedroom door. 

Crowley scrambled to cover himself completely in blankets before calling for the person to come in. It was Aziraphale. Crowley relaxed, pulling down some of the blankets to reveal his torso and sticking out a leg against the heat in the room. 

“What’s goin’ on?” he asked groggily. Aziraphale snapped his fingers to light a candle sitting on the dresser, preferring the soft half light of a flame to the overhead electric light. 

Aziraphale paused, standing near the foot of the bed, licking his lips and opening and closing his mouth a few times. 

“Move over,” he said finally, coming to stand at the side of the bed. Crowley raised an eyebrow and shimmied over, giving the angel some room. Aziraphale climbed onto the bed and lay stiffly beside Crowley and folded his hands on his belly.

“I’m… I’m worried about Adam,” Aziraphale confessed in a low voice so the boy wouldn’t hear them. 

“Worried about the Anti-Christ? Yeah, me too,” Crowley replied sarcastically, turning to lie on his side, his keen eyesight focusing in on Aziraphale’s profile in the half-light. 

“No, not that! Not  _ really  _ that… Not entirely anyways…,” Aziraphale muttered, still looking at an interesting spot on the ceiling, “I believe… Well, Christmas is coming, and children are extremely invested in it, traditions and all that… Crowley, this is his first major holiday without his parents, and his birthday was just a little while ago and he had to experience that without them too…” 

“I’m not doin’ a bloody Christmas card, if that’s what you’re after,” Crowley interjected disgustedly, “No funny red Father Christmas hats. I refuse.” 

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Crowley, that isn’t what I’m talking about and you know it.” 

Crowley sighed and closed his eyes, feeling too tired to heckle Aziraphale. It was a bad habit he exhibited when he was anxious, and Aziraphale didn’t deserve it. 

“Well… What should we do?” 

“I don’t know… His birthday was hard enough… I think that was when he realized that his parents really  _ were _ gone… That they weren’t coming back…,” Aziraphale murmured, wringing his hands and biting his lip. 

“Mm… He’s definitely been tetchy since then,” Crowley agreed slowly, rubbing his forehead. 

Aziraphale closed his eyes and slumped into the mattress. He sighed sorrowfully, and turned his head to look into Crowley’s eyes. 

“What are we even  _ doing here,  _ Crowley? What’s the use? 

Crowley blinked at Aziraphale in surprise at his uncharacteristically gloomy attitude. 

“We’re… We’re tryin’ to… Preserve the bloody world, that’s what.” 

“Is that what we’re doing?” 

“Well… That was the plan, wasn’t it?” Crowley said uncomfortably, confused, trying to figure out where Aziraphale was going with this. 

“The plan…,” whispered Aziraphale, and Crowley heard the bitterness he had tried to conceal. 

They laid in silence for a while before Aziraphale blinked and looked down to the foot of the bed, noticing for the first time that Crowley’s bare thigh was peeking out of the sheets. 

“Crowley,” he began, blinking rapidly, “Are you…  _ Naked _ under there?” 

“Uh, yeah…. Always sleep naked.”

Aziraphale shook his head slightly but seemed otherwise unsurprised by this revelation. 

“Crowley, I am tired tonight… May I—?” 

“S’long as you don’t mind sleepin’ next to a naked bloke, sure.” 

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and sat up, slowly moving to stand. Crowley watched him unabashedly as he methodically prepared himself for sleep. Aziraphale pulled off his shoes and placed them neatly on the floor at the foot of the bed, removing his socks and placing them, folded, just inside. He took off his coat and hung it gently on a hanger in the closet, and removed his velvet vest and hung it just as lightly on its own hanger. His bow tie he undid and placed neatly on the dresser. He looked to Crowley and paused, before self-consciously removing his shirt, folding it with his back to the lounging demon and placing it on the chair near the dresser. He nervously rubbed his palms together. He didn’t often sleep— (it wasn’t exactly his thing)— but he needed something to break up the days so he could think better. He considered stripping in order to wear something other than his pants to bed, but thought against it, turning around. 

“Oh, put pyjamas on at least, angel,” Crowley goaded, rolling his eyes, “Promise not to look.” 

Aziraphale pursed his lips and gave him a hard look. Crowley clicked his tongue, smirking, and put a palm over his eyes, blocking his vision. In the darkness behind his hand he heard the shuffle of clothing being removed, a frantic noise of dresser drawers being opened and closed as Aziraphale searched for the appropriate clothing, and the shuffle as he put them on. 

“Why don’t you just do a little miracle to change your clothes? If you’re  _ that _ bashful?” Crowley teased from behind his hand.    
  
“I’m trying not to do frivolous miracles. They might draw attention to us,” Aziraphale snapped crossly.   
  
Crowley felt the pressure in the bed fall beside him and he removed his hands from his eyes, regarding Aziraphale tensely lying in a pair of pyjamas above the tangled sheets and licking his lips in nervousness. 

“Relax,” Crowley said quietly, feeling bold enough to reach out and brush one of Aziraphale’s golden curls out of his eyes, “It’s fine… It’ll be fine.”

“How do you know that, Crowley?” Aziraphale burst out, his voice constricted with emotion, “how— how can you know? I can’t stop thinking about what will happen if… If  _ They  _ find out…” 

He turned to look Crowley in the eyes, his face awash in agony. “They’ll  _ destroy _ you, Crowley!” 

Crowley leaned back and shook his head, frustrated. 

“They’ll destroy you too, Aziraphale! You know that, right?” 

Aziraphale blinked rapidly, shocked. “The angels wouldn’t… They wouldn’t—“ 

“They  _ would _ ,” Crowley hissed, turning to him, his voice angry but not with Aziraphale; angry at the cruel world which made them hereditary enemies and made Aziraphale kind and forgiving to a fault… But not really the angel nervously twisting his hands beside him. 

“You’re too kind, Aziraphale,” Crowley whispered, closing his eyes as though he were in pain, “people… People take advantage of you… I— I don’t want you to get… Hurt.” 

“And that is my burden to bear, Crowley,” Aziraphale replied softly, rolling onto his side, still gazing into Crowley’s face. 

“I know,” Crowley murmured, rolling over so that he and Aziraphale were practically nose to nose on the pillows. “Would you get under the covers?” he continued, “It’s weird when you’re outside them.” 

Aziraphale sighed and climbed beneath them, taking up his position nose to nose with Crowley. He closed his eyes.

They were both quiet for a long time before Crowley spoke up, changing the subject. 

“I know you love food, so… M’curious as to what other human things you like.” 

Aziraphale opened his eyes and blinked.

“Like… Have you tried things?” Crowley continued, smirking. 

Aziraphale quirked an eyebrow. 

“Like what sort of things?” 

Crowley rubbed his head and tried to figure out if Aziraphale really  _ was _ that dense or if he was being obtuse on purpose. 

“You know…,” Crowley said, gesturing rudely with his hands and raising an eyebrow, “ _ other things. _ ” 

Aziraphale’s eyes followed the rude gesture and Crowley’s quirking eyebrows and it finally dawned on him as to what Crowley was wondering about. 

“Oh! Oh, I see,” Aziraphale exclaimed, ''Yes, of course.” 

Crowley nearly fell out of bed. That was  _ not _ the reaction he had been expecting. 

“You— You did… You what?” 

Aziraphale shrugged. “I was bored and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.” 

A grin was growing on Crowley’s face as he rubbed his chin, his eyes as wide and as starstruck as the day they had met atop the Eastern Gate of Eden and Aziraphale had confessed that he had given away his flaming sword.

“When?” he demanded, laughter entering his voice. 

“Remember when you asked for holy water? And you disappeared for about a hundred years? Well, I ended up joining a gentleman’s club because I was interested in learning a dance called the Gavotte, and well— It turns out this gentleman’s club was what they called a  _ discreet _ gentleman’s club, and it just so happened a few times that upon returning home after a night of drunken dancing… I had a companion with me when I returned to the bookshop.” 

“The  _ bookshop? _ ” Crowley sputtered, leaning forward to speak directly into Aziraphale’s face. 

“ _ You fucked men in your bookshop?!”  _

Aziraphale smiled genially. “I wouldn’t put it so crudely, but… Yes.” 

Crowley was speechless, delighted, and amazed. “Not very often, mind you. Only a few times,” Aziraphale added thoughtfully, “I enjoyed it but… Well, angels are beings of love and there wasn’t any  _ true _ love between myself and those men of course, so… There it is.” 

Crowley let out a low whistle, completely enamoured with the fact that Aziraphale had dabbled so casually in sex, particularly in a time when sex in general was a public faux pas– Not to mention sex between two individuals who presented as men. 

“Girls were just never your thing, then?” 

Aziraphale blinked for a few moments. “It just… Never dawned on me that I  _ could _ have sex with women.”

Crowley laughed, throwing his head back onto the pillow. 

“Oh, shh! You’ll wake Adam!” Aziraphale admonished, half embarrassed and half amused by this realization.

“That,” Crowley said, “is  _ funny. _ ” 

“Oh, hush, you,” Aziraphale sighed fondly, rolling his eyes, “I’m going to assume  _ you  _ have been with every kind of human in every single era?” 

Crowley twisted his mouth and thought of an answer. 

“Mmm… Sort of. Not really.” 

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and regarded Crowley, silently asking him to continue. 

“Well… I  _ have _ , but… Well. Humans are mortal, and they wither, and they get sick… I found it sort of depressing, really… They throw themselves into passion knowing full well that someday they’ll fade away into nothingness.” 

Aziraphale gazed at his bedfellow thoughtfully, his eyes shining. 

“That’s true,” he agreed, sighing, “To this day I still think of some of the sweet young men who frequented the gentleman’s club— They are long gone now. I do miss them, sometimes. They were kind.” 

“There was… Well, I was a woman… Carlotta, I called myself, and … There was this beautiful young woman … I was fascinated with her, she was so funny and brilliant but… She died and… Well, It’s stupid. I should have known.” Crowley felt uncomfortable sharing this, his words halting. His thoughts strayed to the sketch sitting behind his chair in his flat and felt badly for not bringing it with him to Tadfield.    
  
He stayed silent for a while, lost in the millions of faces they had seen and spoken to in their long stint on Earth. 

“I missed you, you know,” Aziraphale said suddenly, the confession spilling out of his mouth. 

“Hmm?”   
  
“When you disappeared…,” Aziraphale explained, licking his lips, “That’s partly why I even bothered to join that gentleman’s club in the first place. I was… Very lonely without you, Crowley.” 

Crowley closed his eyes and swallowed.    
  
“I… M’sorry,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead, “I know… I was… I was lonely too. That’s when I discovered sleep. I crawled into my flat and I went to sleep, and I was worried that… Uh… That I’d never be able to talk to you again. That you didn’t want to see me.”    
  
Aziraphale sighed and shook his head slightly, looking into Crowley’s face.    
  
“No, Crowley… I was angry, but I wasn’t  _ that _ angry. I was  _ scared. _ I didn’t want… I didn’t…”    
  
He licked his lips, his voice becoming a whisper.    
  
“I didn’t want to live in the world if you weren’t in it, Crowley.”    
  
Crowley’s hand was trembling beneath the sheets. He blinked rapidly, not certain if what he was hearing was the truth, not believing that he had truly heard those words pass Aziraphale’s lips.    
  
“Aziraphale…,” Crowley murmured, his heart hammering, his entire being coiled and tense. He was on the precipice of something dangerous, something exhilarating, something wonderful. If he stepped forward, there was no stepping back. Whatever Aziraphale’s response, it was final.    
  
“I am so sorry, dear,” Aziraphale whispered, closing his eyes, “I am so very tired. I need to sleep.”    
  
Crowley swallowed, feeling like a raging river cut off by the sudden appearance of an impenetrable dam. He licked his lips a few times, his mind exploding with intrusive thoughts of what Aziraphale would look like wearing the golden band he had bought, when the sound of the angel’s slow breathing caught his ear and he looked down. Aziraphale was sleeping softly, his face still turned toward Crowley’s, his curly hair hanging down on his forehead. Crowley let out a breath he did not know he was holding and sighed. He reached a tentative hand to Aziraphale’s cheek and cupped his face gently.    
  
“Good night, my love,” he whispered. 


	13. Chapter 13

The phone rang at noon and Crowley heard Aziraphale answer it cheerfully from the living room where he was curled up on the couch, covered in a blanket, and half-watching a program on television. As the conversation continued, Aziraphale’s tone became more and more grave, until he hung up the phone and came quickly into the room.   
  
“Adam is in trouble at school,” Aziraphale sighed anxiously, “He beat up another kid.” 

  
Crowley rolled his eyes, throwing off his pleasantly warm blanket and sitting up. “Fuck…  _ Again?  _ This  _ has _ to stop.”    
  
“I know. The Headmaster wants to see me this afternoon to discuss Adam’s behaviour.”    
  
Crowley growled and stood up, fixing his hair. “Right,” he said, straightening his clothes and cracking his neck, “Let’s go. I’m bloody sick of this.”    
  
Aziraphale and Crowley left number 4 Hogback Lane and drove to the school which was a few miles outside of town and served a few communities in the Oxfordshire area. Crowley approached the school, the Bentley’s engine grumbling, matching his mood. He  _ was _ a demon, and mayhem made up a decent chunk of the job description, but even he wasn’t into the senseless violence and cruelty that some of his peers in the lower rings of Hell enjoyed. Hestur, for example, simply liked to destroy things. He and demons like Ligur would worry away at a soul or two like a dog at a bone until the individual was completely destroyed and damned. They were what you might call specialists, whereas Crowley was much more of a jack-of-all-trades who preferred to get on with his own business while causing widespread, low-grade mischief wherever he went. Adam was beginning to become a bully, something that Crowley found distasteful– and more importantly,  _ trashy. _   
  
Aziraphale, on the other hand, was in full panic mode regarding Adam’s poor behaviour. He had a tendency to take everything to heart, and had gotten it in his head that the reason Adam was acting out was because he’d hurt the boy in some way. Crowley kept it to himself, but he felt it was rather selfish of the angel to think that–– The only reason Adam was acting out was because his parents were dead and he was confused and pissed off about it, and couldn’t tell anybody except for three of his friends. Aziraphale had self-consciously pulled away, giving Adam his space, but Crowley suspected this was having the opposite effect to what he wanted.    
  
He parked illegally near the school and Aziraphale put his hand on the door, rushing to get out.    
  
“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, reaching out and putting a hand on the angel’s shoulder to stop him, “Wait a second.”    
  
Aziraphale turned to him and gave him a pained look. “Crowley, we really must go––”    
  
“Just… Sit down and listen for a second. Please?”    
  
Aziraphale collected himself and sat back down, moving his hand away from the door.    
  
“Listen,” Crowley began, sighing, and trying to come up with the words he wanted to use to make his point, “I think… You’ve been taking Adam’s behaviour too personally. He’s… He’s just pissed off, you know? And you’re… Movin’ away from him, but I think he actually really wants your attention. Even if that attention is anger, you know?”    
  
Aziraphale seemed slightly confused and blinked. “You think… You think I should be firmer with him?”    
  
“Yeah, like… Like what I do, I don’t let him get away with things just because he’s sad. I was  _ damned,  _ I understand pain. It doesn’t excuse him from acting like that. Even demons only  _ tempt _ people, they don’t actually  _ do _ the deed.”    
  
Aziraphale took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes… Yes you’re right, of course. I just… I want to comfort him, but I’m not sure if he  _ wants _ to be comforted.”    
  
“He does,” muttered Crowley, adjusting his sunglasses, and feeling the ghost of the sensation of sulfur burning his angelic body into ash, “Trust me.”    
  
“I suppose… If I was firm but made sure he knew I cared?”    
  
“That would be best, I reckon,” Crowley agreed. They sat in silence for a few minutes.    
  
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Crowley asked, tapping the steering wheel and looking away from Aziraphale.    
  
“Please, Crowley… I think I’ll do better if you’re there.”    
  
The unlikely pair got out of the car and walked towards the office of the school, where they were met with a curious look from a middle aged receptionist who was typing on a computer and looked up when they came in. Across the office, through a window, they could see Adam’s back to them in a chair and a woman in the office with him, sitting at his desk and looking stern.    
  
“Mrs. Cook will be with you shortly, gentlemen,” the receptionist said, adjusting his glasses, and smiling, nodding towards a row of uncomfortable looking chairs on the wall. The minutes ticked by and the Headmaster, Mrs. Cook, finally stepped out of her office and closed the door behind her. She strode forward, toward them and then stopped, taking them in for a brief moment before extending her hand to Aziraphale.    
  
Aziraphale stood up and took her hand, shaking it.    
  
“Mr. Young, thank you for coming in,” she said gravely, turning to Crowley. She blinked as she fully took in his appearance, the sunglasses indoors, the boots, the low-cut shirt, and he saw her lip twitch. She extended a hand to him and he stood up to take it, shaking it lazily. “And mister…?”    
  
“Crowley,” he said, smirking slightly at her, an Alice Cooper tune playing in his mind, “I’m his partner.”    
  
“I see,” Mrs. Cook nodded, “If you’ll both follow me…”    
  
She led them into her office and they were ushered inside and offered two equally uncomfortable chairs in front of her desk. Adam was sitting in another chair by the window, his head bowed, his hair in front of his eyes.    
  
“Adam, would you please wait outside?” she asked, her voice not unkind. Adam didn’t respond but stood up abruptly and stomped outside of the office, closing the door behind him. Crowley spun his head around and watched through the office window as he trudged to the seats by the door and sat down, crossing his arms and pulling into himself, his bag open on the floor.    
  
“Well, Mr. Young, I’m sorry to say, but Adam seems to have become quite the bully,” she said, sighing and leaning back in her chair, “I’m honestly quite surprised he of all children would exhibit this behaviour… He’s always been so intelligent and curious, never violent.”    
  
She paused for a few moments, before leaning forward. “I am very sorry to have to ask, but… Is there any changes at home which might explain why he’s suddenly acting so violently?”    
  
Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged looks, and Aziraphale seemed to be stuck for words.    
  
“His grandparents died very recently,” Crowley lied, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, “Aziraphale’s parents. They were killed in a car crash, and… I don’t think he’s dealing with it very well.”    
  
Aziraphale swallowed and nodded slightly, seeming very upset. “I… I myself have been… Struggling with it,” he confessed, “I hadn’t realized that Adam was acting out this way.”    
  
Mrs. Cook nodded thoughtfully, rubbing her lips with a forefinger. “I see,” she said.    
  
“He’s a very quiet boy, sometimes,” Aziraphale told her, wringing his hands, “He… Doesn’t always like to talk to me about how he feels. I’m trying to give him space, but I suppose he needs a little more.”    
  
She looked to Crowley. “Have  _ you _ tried talking to him?” she asked bluntly.   
  
“Yeh… Uh… I’m not so good at talkin’,” Crowley stuttered, licking his lips, “It’s not… Uh, my strong suit.”    
  
“All the same,” Mrs. Cook said, inclining her head, “He may just want someone to listen.” She thought for a moment. 

  
“Well, regardless, we have to suspend him until Monday for his behaviour. John was quite injured and his parents are furious… If I may suggest, I would consider taking him to therapy in order to address his anger. It’s obviously coming from a place of deep grief. If you need anything, please let us know. We’ll try to assist you. I really hope this is just a rough time for Adam, he really is a good kid.”   
  
Aziraphale nodded to her, smiling kindly. “Thank you… He _is_ a good child, he just… He needs a little help, I think.”   
  
They shook hands with Mrs. Cook and left her office. Aziraphale stood, staring at Adam as though he were trying to make his mind up about something, before striding forward toward the boy, who looked up rebelliously at him.   
  
“Adam Young, in the car. _Now,_ ” Aziraphale growled, pointing toward the door. Adam looked gobsmacked at the angel’s anger and turned to Crowley, his eyes questioning. Crowley looked down at Adam expressionlessly, not coming to his rescue this time. Adam gathered his things quickly and scampered out of the door, walking ahead of them towards the Bentley and letting himself into the backseat. Crowley got into the driver’s seat and he could see Adam trying to get his attention in the rearview but he looked stonily ahead. The kid needed to understand what he was doing. Aziraphale got into the car and slammed the door. Crowley had thought he was play acting, but the more he sat there and stewed the more Crowley realized he actually _was_ angry.   
  
They drove in uncomfortable silence for a while before Adam spoke up.   
  
“I’m… I’m sorry,” he mumbled.   
  
“Are you?” Aziraphale cut in, “Are you really? You said you were sorry last time, but you did it again!”   
  
Adam stuttered for a few moments, completely thrown off guard by Aziraphale’s change in attitude.   
  
“I _am_ sorry!” he yelled angrily, tears clogging his voice, “I’m sorry! For real!”   
  
“You are _grounded_ , Adam Young,” Aziraphale told him, his voice simmering with fury, “You are to stay in your room this weekend!”   
  
Adam looked completely shocked. “But I was going to play with Pepper and Wensleydale and–”   
  
“You will not! You are going to stay in your room and you are going to clean it, and you are going to _think_ about what you’ve done!”   
  
Adam was crying angrily now, tears running down his face. He crossed his arms and flung himself against the seat of the Bentley and wept the entire way home. When they pulled into the driveway, he grabbed his bag and flung open the door, not bothering to close it, and stomped into the house and up the stairs to his room. When he slammed his bedroom door, the house rattled. Aziraphale got out of the car and seemed to completely deflate, putting a hand on his chest and closing his eyes, sighing heavily.   
  
“Oh… I never want to do that again,” he said quietly, leaning slightly against the car, “That was _awful._ ”   
  
“But _necessary,_ angel,” Crowley said, a smirk coming onto his face. He couldn’t help it. Watching Aziraphale get angry sort of did something for him.   
  
“I don’t know if grounding him is going to stop him from destroying everything,” Aziraphale said nervously, walking slowly with Crowley toward the house.   
  
“He needs structure and rules,” Crowley said, shrugging, “He’ll feel even worse otherwise.”  
  
“It seems counterintuitive but, yes… You’re right,” Aziraphale sighed, coming into the house. They could hear Adam’s howling crying from all the way in the kitchen, and Crowley rolled his eyes slightly, throwing off his sunglasses onto the table.   
  
Aziraphale started to make tea, something he did absently when he was agitated. Crowley sat down at the kitchen table and looked out into the garden. The sun was setting behind the trees, and the tall, yellowing grass blew in the chilly breeze. Apparently they needed to actually _cut_ the grass to be considered proper members of the Tadfield village, but Crowley had just made them _believe_ that the grass was cut, when in reality it was knee-high and filled to the brim with primrose and blue bells, which now had fallen into their winter slumber. Aziraphale loved wildflowers and he hadn’t had the heart to actually get rid of them. Aziraphale boiled the kettle and poured them both a cup of tea, placing Crowley’s mug in front of him and sitting across from him at the little wooden table. They enjoyed the silence for a bit, Adam’s howls having subsided, and sipped at their drinks. After a while, Crowley spoke up.   
  
“You think it’d actually work… If I… If I went up there and…?”   
  
Aziraphale sighed. “Perhaps… I don’t know. If you want to… I think we have to at least try,” he said softly, looking down into the mug he held between his hands.   
  
“Alright then, I’ll… Give it a go. Try it out,” Crowley muttered, standing up and walking towards the stairs. He paused and looked back at Aziraphale, who was gazing out of the window into the garden with a sad expression on his face. Crowley blinked and turned around, slowly making his way up the staircase toward Adam’s room. He stood in front of the door, reading the name ADAM in capital letters over and over again, his eyes flicking past the handwritten sign in the child’s handwriting that told him to “KEEP OUT!”   
  
Crowley lifted his hand and knocked.   
  
He didn’t hear anything, so he knocked again. No answer.   
  
Slowly, he opened the door, its hinges squeaking slightly, and peered inside. The room was bathed in the half-light of the evening, and Crowley peered easily into the darkness and concluded immediately that something was very amiss. Firstly, he couldn’t see Adam in the room. Secondly, the window was wide open, letting the cold November air flow into the room. Crowley stepped in and strode to the open window, looking down. He grunted angrily.   
  
There was a short roof just below Adam’s window, enough that a child of his size could easily slip onto it and then slip down onto the ground. He looked around and noted Adam’s backpack was gone, and so was his flashlight, a few notebooks, and the coat he had worn to school.   
  
“For fuck’s sake,” Crowley swore under his breath, debating on what to do. He could tell Aziraphale, but then all the angel would do was panic and probably call the police and be completely inconsolable. He bit his lip. He had a hunch as to where Adam had gone, and considering the circumstances, he felt this was something he should perhaps do alone. He backed out of the room and closed the door, turning around to go down the hallway.   
  
He bumped directly into Aziraphale, who had been anxiously waiting outside the door.   
  
“Oh fuck, Aziraphale! Don’t do that,” he admonished, stepping back.   
  
“Is… Is he alright?” Aziraphale asked nervously, bouncing on his heels. Crowley swallowed, and looked down so he didn’t have to look the angel in the eyes as he lied to him.   
  
“He’s fine… He went to sleep, I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” he mumbled. He looked into Aziraphale’s eyes, which were shining with concern. He smiled, and it felt painful to do so when he was lying directly to his face. “Why don’t you go down and… Make yourself a nice cup of cocoa?” he suggested, putting a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder and leading him towards the stairs, “You’ve been havin’ it rough lately, yeah?”   
  
Aziraphale nodded and swallowed, sighing. “Yes… Yes I think I will.”   
  
They made their way downstairs and Crowley put the kettle on once again, unintentionally becoming more affectionate as he played out his lie. “I’m gonna go out for a little drive… Clear my head. Okay?”   
  
Aziraphale brought out a mug and smiled sadly at him, nodding. “Yes… I’ll see you later, I’ll stay here in case Adam needs anything.”   
  
“Good call,” Crowley responded fondly, feeling terrible, but knowing deep in his heart that he’d made the right call. He walked as calmly as he could to the front door and went outside. After he closed the front door and was out of Aziraphale’s sight, he scampered to the Bentley and dove inside, the car’s engine roaring to life. He backed haphazardly out of the driveway and sped off into the night, towards the likely places that Adam may have gone.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


He had been driving for half an hour before he had any luck. He had checked all of the children’s haunts, Hogback woods, and the little Eden they had made for themselves in the glen. He was nowhere to be found. The last place that he went to check, and where in his heart he knew the boy was, was the offroad clearing outside of town where his life had changed forever. The narrow, winding country lane was much unchanged as to when he had first travelled to it all those months ago, and he pulled off to the side near a familiar patch of trees. He got out of the car and wandered slowly into the underbrush, peering around with his keen night vision into the trees, looking for any sign of Adam.   
  
“Adam?” he called out, looking around, “Adam! It’s me!”   
  
No answer. He sniffed the wind, trying to see if he could scent the boy in the crisp autumn air, but something seemed to be blocking him. He grimaced, remembering that Adam had a sort of defence built into his body that prevented him from being detected should he wish it. However, something familiar seemed to be around him, something he knew very well from living around it for nearly four months straight.   
  
“Adam,” he said quietly, “I know you’re here. I know you’re hiding yourself from me.”   
  
Crowley sighed and sat down in the underbrush, ignoring the cold, and put his hands on his knees.   
  
“I’m not leaving,” he said, stubbornly, “I’m not leaving until you’re safe with me. I’m _here_ , and I’m not going anywhere.”   
  
“Go away,” Adam’s voice rang out across the scrub trees and underbrush, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere, “I don’t want to live with you and Aziraphale anymore. I want my parents back.”   
  
“Your parents can’t come back, Adam,” Crowley said firmly, “They’re _gone._ I’m sorry… But… They’re gone. Forever.”   
  
“You’re lying!” Adam wailed, the trees seeming to shake with his fury, “You’re a demon! You lie, and you trick people! You… You’re bad, and you hurt people, and I don’t believe you!”   
  
Crowley felt a strong wind that seemed to hit him with the force of a train, and he was thrown onto his back. He clenched his jaw and slowly got up, moving to sit right back where he had sat before.   
  
“I don’t care what you do to me, Adam,” he said, crossing his arms, “I don’t care. I’m not leaving you alone, and I’m not leaving here without you.”   
  
“I said _LEAVE ME ALONE!”_   
  
The forest seemed to come alive, roots flinging from their earthy confines and whipping up toward Crowley’s body. Crowley sniffed uninterestedly and the roots froze, mid assault. He brushed one off of his arm. 

“You’re just gonna hurt me, huh? Just like you hurt, John? Did that  _ fix _ anything, Adam? Did making John hurt make you hurt less, or did it just make you hurt  _ more _ ?”    
  
Adam didn’t reply, but the roots sunk back into the forest floor with a sigh, the trees seeming to breathe in relief to be released from the will of an unearthly power. Adam appeared before him, in his pyjamas, his blue coat thrown over his shoulders, his backpack at his feet. He was standing and shaking and staring at Crowley with a mixture of fury and desperation.    
  
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he croaked, “All I want to do is  _ hurt _ people.”    
  
“ _ You’re _ hurt… And you’re scared… And you’re sad,” Crowley said, unsure if his words were impactful enough but hoping beyond hope that they were.    
  
“Why’s a demon being so nice to me?” Adam asked, his voice choked, tears flicking down his cheeks.    
  
“Because I… Aziraphale and I, we…”    
  
Crowley licked his lips, knowing full-well that what he was about to say would earn him a death sentence if Hell ever heard him utter it.    
  
“We love humanity. And we… We love  _ you, _ Adam. You’re brilliant, and you’re funny, and your friends adore you… I wish there was something we could do to make everything better, but we can’t… The only thing that will help is time… And I know you’re hurtin’ but… It won’t feel like this forever. I  _ promise. _ ”    
  
His slitted pupils gazed into Adam’s eyes and the boy slowly walked toward him, unsure.    
  
“I don’t… Wanna feel like this all the time,” he whispered, his coat stained in tears, “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”    
  
“I know,” Crowley said, blinking up at the boy, “but that’s just it… Sometimes… You  _ have _ to let yourself hurt to feel better.”    
  
The boy sank to his knees in front of him and Crowley reached out tentative hands, placing them on the boy’s shoulders.    
  
“You worried me, Adam,” Crowley confessed quietly, “And Aziraphale too.”    
  
Adam looked up at him, his blue eyes shining in the darkness, his face stricken.    
  
“Is Aziraphale really mad at me?” he sobbed, “I didn’t want to make him mad… He’s been so nice to me, and I’ve been so bad…” 

  
“Aziraphale is just worried about you, Adam,” he assured, gulping, “He… He loves you very, very much.”    
  
“Are you sure he’ll still love me, even though I beat up John?” he sniffled, wiping his tears away with his coat sleeve.    
  
“Yes… I  _ promise _ he still loves you.”    
  
Suddenly, they both heard a distinct pop and a gasp of surprise and a shuffle of shoes in the leafy forest floor.    
  
“C-Crowley?” Aziraphale’s voice called out, sounding terrified, “Crowley! Adam’s missing, I– I had to figure out how to teleport to you, we need to go out now, we need to find him! Where are you, Crowley? I–– Oh!”    
  
He spotted them sitting close together in the underbrush and rushed forward, kneeling down and grabbing Adam bodily, pulling him into a close embrace.    
  
“Oh, Adam! There you are, goodness!” Aziraphale gasped in relief, holding the boy’s head close to his chest, “I was so worried!”    
  
He pulled Adam away from him and looked deep into the boy’s eyes.    
  
“Never do that to us again! I was so worried! Crowley said you were asleep, but I went to check on you and you weren’t there and––”    
  
He paused looking at Crowley, his expression darkening.    
  
“You  _ knew he was gone! You lied! _ ”    
  
Crowley coiled into himself in regret. “Ye-Yeah, I… I didn’t want to worry you…”    
  
“Worry–– Crowley! You know I’ll worry no matter what you do!”    
  
“I just… He needed time on his own,” Crowley explained, shrugging uncomfortably. He looked to Adam. “Right?”    
  
“Yeah,” Adam said softly, looking down at his hands, “I’m… I’m sorry for worrying you, Mr. Aziraphale. And… I’m really sorry for hurting John. It wasn’t fair… I just… I just feel so bad, all the time.”    
  
He began to tear up again, and his body shook with small sobs. Aziraphale looked at Crowley, his expression lightening. Crowley shrugged, rubbing the back of his head. He  _ had _ managed to get through to the boy after all. Aziraphale extended a hand to Adam and stood up, helping the boy to his feet, and led him to the car, wrapping an arm around his shoulders lovingly. Crowley gazed after them, still kneeling in the dirt, and looked up at the clear sky. A bright star twinkled back at him and he wondered, briefly, if it was one of the stars he had helped to create.   



	14. Chapter 14

“I want a dog,” Adam announced at breakfast on a Sunday morning, “for Christmas, I mean.”  
  
The day was cloudy, and the grey sky promised snowfall, the first of the year. It was early December, and the weather had been crisp, cold, and clear for many weeks. Aziraphale was wrapped in his favourite housecoat, his hair sticking on end. Ever since Adam had run away, he had taken to naps and joined Crowley in the master bedroom for the latter half of the winter nights. Crowley certainly didn’t mind–– Contrary to popular belief, hell was a very cold and damp place, and winter reminded him far too much of being stuck near the rotting filing cabinets of Hell’s deepest circles. Aziraphale’s bright presence, which exuded warmth like a heater, was a welcome addition to his nightly relaxation. He _was_ , after all, a snake.  
  
Crowley himself was wrapped in a fuzzy black housecoat, his own shoulder-length hair sticking up at odd ends at the crown of his head, and was just pouring himself and Aziraphale a cup of coffee when Adam made his announcement. He almost dropped the coffee pot in shock, and spun around to look at him.  
  
“Oh, well,” Aziraphale said, sitting down beside Adam and looking at him seriously, “A dog… That is _a lot_ of responsibility, Adam.”  
  
Crowley flicked his eyes from Aziraphale to Adam, and back again, blinking. The way Aziraphale was speaking didn’t betray any kind of deep concern about this sudden desire of Adam’s to own a pet. Maybe he didn’t know. On the Anti-Christ’s eleventh birthday, the deepest circles of hell were to let loose a hellhound, one which would become the child’s companion on earth, protect him from harm, and help him to bring Armageddon to the planet earth. Aziraphale, it seemed, was only concerned about the mess a dog might make of the house.  
  
He handed Aziraphale his coffee, and gestured with his head, interrupting his conversation with Adam.  
  
“Yeah, dog’s a big responsibility, Adam, big decision–– Aziraphale, can I uh, can I talk to you for a second?”  
  
Aziraphale blinked at him as he was ushered around the corner. Crowley pulled him into a side room where Adam couldn’t hear them, or read their lips, which was something he was getting quite good at.

“He _can’t_ have a dog!” Crowley whispered furiously, gazing into Aziraphale’s eyes with terrified fervour. 

Aziraphale seemed to be completely at a loss for why Crowley was reacting so vehemently against Adam getting a dog. 

“Why, Crowley? A dog might do him good, give him something to care for, something to distract him…” 

Crowley rubbed his temples and dragged his hands down his face. 

“No, no, you don’t get it angel,” he hissed, “they’re already sending him a dog, in a year’s time…On his eleventh birthday? When he’s supposed to come into his full power? He gets a hellhound, the biggest, most terrifying one they’ve got, and it’s supposed to help him bring about Armageddon.” 

Aziraphale blinked in shock. “Well— Why haven’t I heard about this until just this moment!” he gasped in surprise, “why didn’t you tell me earlier?” 

“Whatever, I’m telling you now! No dogs! Goldfish, sure. Cat? Maybe. But a hard no on bloody _dogs._ ” 

“Oh… Oh _alright,_ ” Aziraphale agreed, sighing, “Fine. No dogs. It’s too bad, though… I think a dog would really help him.”  
  
They reentered the kitchen and Adam was swinging his legs, eating his breakfast calmly and looking out the window, where it had begun to snow softly and gently, the outside world blanketed in a layer of crisp white. Aziraphale busied himself with dishes and Adam chewed loudly, giving them both a suspicious look. 

“Were you both talkin’ about the dog you’re gonna get me for Christmas?” he asked through a mouthful of toast. He took a loud sip of orange juice and continued, swallowing. “I don’t want a big dog, just a little one… One that’s super smart and that I can teach tricks and stuff.”

Crowley, sipping his coffee tiredly, rubbed his eyes.  
  
“Look, we can’t get a dog right now… I’m sorry, kid, but we just can’t do it. It’s too much responsibility. Maybe a goldfish would be better, yeah?”  
  
Adam glared at him. “A _goldfish_?!”  
  
“Yeah, you know… You can talk to a goldfish and watch them swim and other things…”  
  
“A goldfish is _boring_ , Crowley,” Adam whined, rolling his eyes, “I want a _dog_ , a good one, that I can take with me to Hogback wood and play with the Them. I can’t take a _goldfish_ to Hogback wood, can I?”  
  
Crowley gazed tersely at Adam from over the rim of his coffee mug and flicked his tongue across his front teeth. He knew logically that children were imitative, but he hadn’t realized just _how_ imitative. He was beginning to take on little traits that Crowley recognized in himself, such as the rolling eyes and sarcastic remarks. Quite frankly, he was a little disturbed that he was latching onto Crowley’s traits more than Aziraphale’s–– If Adam started imitating _him,_ they wouldn’t have to worry about Armageddon at all.  
  
“I’m sorry, _no dog._ That’s final.”  
  
Adam sighed angrily and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and staring out of the snowy window. Crowley sipped his coffee and picked up the newspaper sitting on the table. Aziraphale was humming gently as the pots and pans scraped together in the sink. Adam eventually, moodily, began eating again. At the very least, he seemed to respect their authority much more now than he had before. He had never really tried to argue with Crowley, but he had stopped disrespecting Aziraphale, which was a nice change. Recently, Adam had come into the living room where Aziraphale had been knitting in preparation for a weekly stitch and bitch club he had joined in the village and had sat beside him on the sofa, curling up and putting his head near Aziraphale’s shoulder. Aziraphale assured him that seeking affection was a good sign, a sign that things might be getting better.  
  
Adam stood up to leave the kitchen table when Crowley caught his eye, jerking his head over to the sink where Aziraphale was doing dishes. Adam slumped, but obeyed, grabbing a dry towel and drying the dishes Aziraphale was washing.  
  
“You can make miracles happen, how come you’re washing dishes by hand?” Adam asked Aziraphale, taking a plate and drying it, putting it in the rack.  
  
“It’s relaxing,” Aziraphale explained, handing him a wet bowl, “and it’s healthy for you to have chores.”  
  
“I don’t think chores are healthy,” Adam grimaced, “I think they’re the opposite of healthy.”  
  
“One day you might find this relaxing,” Aziraphale said lightly, smiling at the boy and handing him a handful of forks, “You’ll see.”  
  
“I don’t think I’ll ever find chores relaxing… No offense.”  
  
Just then, a familiar hand knocked on the front door and Adam looked to Aziraphale hopefully.  
  
“Alright, fine… Go on,” Aziraphale smiled kindly, gesturing with his head toward the door.  
  
“Thanks!” Adam exclaimed happily, running toward the entryway and throwing open the door. The Them were standing under the eave of the front door in hats, mittens, and scarves. Adam pounded toward the closet double-time and pulled a wool hat on his head and mittens on his fingers, throwing his boots on.  
  
“Be back by suppertime,” Crowley called out to the sound of the slamming door.  
  
Out of the eyesight of Adam, Aziraphale snapped his fingers and the dishes appeared, cleaned, stacked and dry, on the rack.  
  
Crowley raised an eyebrow and smirked at him. “ _Chores are relaxing,_ ” he repeated mockingly, “ _It’s healthy to have chores._ ’ Very subtle, Aziraphale.”  
  
Aziraphale rolled his eyes and snapped him with the washcloth. “Oh, _hush,_ ” he clucked tetchily, grabbing a cup of coffee.

“You’re lucky he didn’t catch you using your powers to finish those dishes,” Crowley intoned, flicking the newspaper down and regarding Aziraphale over it, “you’d never hear the end of it otherwise. Plus, I thought you weren’t tryin’ to perform _frivolous miracles._ ” 

“Yes yes… whatever,” Aziraphale sighed. He walked over to a shelf in the living room, pulling out a heavy tome and walking back with it toward the kitchen table. Slowly, he opened it to a marked page and pulled out his reading glasses, his finger finding a line and beginning to read. 

Crowley watched him and mirth grew in his face as he looked at his tiny, silly reading glasses. 

“You don’t need those,” he teased, leaning forward and pulling them from Aziraphale’s nose, “why do you wear em’?” 

Aziraphale furrowed his brow at him, his lips pursing. Crowley knew that this technically was Aziraphale’s expression when he was put out, but he found the pouting lips and angry brows almost comical, like he had caught Aziraphale eating the last scoop of ice cream and had called him on it. 

“You don’t need _your_ glasses all the time, Crowley, and yet you wear them even when you don’t need to,” Aziraphale rebuked snootily, reaching forward to try and grab his reading glasses back from Crowley. 

Crowley held them above his head, grinning mischievously at him, just out of Aziraphale’s reach. Aziraphale knitted his brows together in annoyance and stood up, reaching over. 

“Give them back, Crowley,” he snapped. 

“ _Give them back Crowley,_ ” Crowley mocked in a high pitched voice, tilting his chair back by bracing his feet against the table to keep the glasses out of reach. 

Aziraphale straightened and crossed his arms, his lips pursed tightly as he glared. A huge smirk grew on Crowley’s face as he regarded him, flicking the glasses in his hand before putting them on his nose. They really were comically small, likely a pair that Aziraphale had gotten in the early 19th century. He peered at Aziraphale over the wire rim and pouted comically. 

“Honestly, dear…” Aziraphale sighed, exasperated, rolling his eyes, “would you stop that?” 

“What’re you readin’, angel?” Crowley asked, changing the subject, adjusting the little glasses on his nose and taking a sip of coffee. 

“Well… As you well know, I have an impressive collection of books on prophecy. The most valuable ones are the ones I brought with me, of course, and this is one of them. I thought it might be silly, but worth a read, to see if any of them hold predictions regarding the anti-Christ.” 

“Any luck?” Crowley asked, leaning over and peering into the yellowed parchment of what he thought might be Mother Shipton’s book, judging from the red wine stain. As his memory served, she had been completely smashed when she wrote her prophecies, a side effect of knowing what was going to happen and when. 

“No,” Aziraphale sighed, sitting back down, “not really… There is one book that I _know_ would have the answers, but it’s so rare I don’t think there are any extant copies.” 

“What’s that one called?” 

“ _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch,_ ” Aziraphale recited wistfully, “only one copy is said to exist, the free publishers copy that was sent to the author. The rest were destroyed due to poor sales.” 

“How do you know it’s accurate?” 

“Well, it’s the most accurate one I’ve encountered. The only prophecy that survived outside of the book itself was a prophecy for 1972, which read “ _Do not buy Betamax_.” 

Crowley lifted his head, a grin spreading across his face. 

“Really? She predicted that?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale laughed, “I used to think it was a name, until a few decades ago. Going on that, everything in that book would likely prove to be extremely accurate. Perhaps Agnes herself did not fully grasp what things _meant_ , necessarily, but she seemed to predict them as accurately as she could.” 

“Well, if you say the book’s accurate, you think there’d be any predictions in there about you or me?” Crowley asked, pulling off the tiny glasses. They were a little loose and kept sliding off. 

“That’s just it,” Aziraphale sighed, “the book may only contain predictions that pertain to her and her loved ones. But if she really was clairvoyant, she would know the events that will unfold.” 

“Seems like it’s sort of a lost cause, don’t you think? Lookin’ for a book like that? Better off just focusing on the here and now,” Crowley reasoned, shrugging. 

“Yes… Yes you’re right, Crowley. It’s just… I feel as though I need guidance. I have always had guidance in some way, be it from God or from the other angels… This is uncertain territory.” 

Crowley shrugged. “I sort of… Like the freedom, to be honest. You and I can make miracles and tempt people, but even we don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future. I don’t think I’d like that, knowin’ what’s gonna happen.” 

Aziraphale leaned back in his chair and looked out at the wintry wonderland that was slowly unfolding outside of the window. “I suppose,” he muttered, his light brows furrowing, “Six thousand years among humans… And yet I feel unprepared to help a child grow up.” 

“You’re bein’ too hard on yourself, angel,” Crowley said quickly, shaking his head, “and this just isn’t any kid, this is the bloody Anti-Christ. Don’t think we’d have the same problem raising another kid.” 

“I don’t know, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, turning his head and laughing softly, “somehow… I think, no matter the child, it’s hard and confusing work. They have their own thoughts, aspirations, personalities, flaws… You and I are used to adults, but children are different.” 

“Children are just adults that tell the truth,” Crowley snorted, standing up to rinse out his mug at the sink. He placed it back in the cupboard and turned around, leaning casually against the counter. 

“We just have to… Do our best, I guess,” Crowley shrugged, “like we’ve always been doing.” 

Aziraphale bit his lip and looked down into his tea. He wasn’t so sure.   
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
  
December swirled passed them quickly in a whirlwind of get togethers, parties, and other seasonal festivities. Christmas had been snowy and cold in Tadfield for the past decade, an unintentional effect of being home to Adam Young, who (though he did not fully realize), had been bending the weather to his will. This particular child awoke bright and early on Christmas Eve and leapt out of bed, throwing off his blankets and careening down the stairs, sliding along the short hallway and into the kitchen, where Aziraphale was busy baking. The entire house smelled deliciously of sugar cookies and gingerbread. Aziraphale had gotten a bit carried away and the entire kitchen was covered in every conceivable sweet meat that was even vaguely associated with the holiday in question. Adam, filled to the brim with excitement, popped over to Aziraphale and wrapped his arms around him. 

“Happy Christmas, Aziraphale,” he said, smiling. 

Aziraphale turned to him and grinned tenderly, leaning down to wrap his arms around Adam. 

“Happy Christmas, Adam,” he whispered into the boy’s hair.  
  
Suddenly, the sound of a small explosion rang out through the kitchen and Adam and Aziraphale jumped in surprise, yelling.  
  
“HAPPY BLOODY CHRISTMAS, YOU LOT!” Crowley yelled, holding two pieces of an exploded Christmas cracker.  
  
“Crowley!” Aziraphale exclaimed, clutching his chest, “Honestly!”  
  
Adam cackled in laughter and ran over to Crowley, jumping up and clinging to him. Crowley dropped the spent bits of Christmas cracker on the floor and grabbed the child, lifting him into the air and roaring loudly.  
  
“HAPPY CHRISTMAS, CROWLEY!” Adam yelled into his shirt.  
  
In front of them, Aziraphale giggled and came over. Crowley put Adam back down on the floor and he ran to the table, grabbing a ginger cookie and chowing down.  
  
“You’re rather exuberant today, Crowley,” Aziraphale said under his breath, smiling and raising his eyebrows. Crowley shrugged, smirking back.  
  
They took their breakfast together, snow falling softly and serenely outside of the kitchen window.  
  
“Today I wanna go sleddin’, and tonight I wanna go to the Church service,” Adam announced through a mouthful of toast and strawberry jam (which Aziraphale had made earlier in the year with a group of old women in the Tadfield village).  
  
“Oh!” Aziraphale exclaimed, a little surprised that Adam would want to attend Church, “I suppose I could take you to the service, if you want.”  
  
Beside him, Crowley had gone still, sipping his coffee slowly. He wasn’t exactly _upset_ that he couldn’t go with them, but he also felt a strange flash of jealousy inside of him when he thought of them going without him.  
  
Adam chewed thoughtfully for a moment before pausing.  
  
“Oh,” he said, in realization, “I guess… You can’t come with us, can you, Crowley?”  
  
Crowley forced a smirk on his face and shook his head. “No, I can’t.”  
  
Adam swallowed and blinked a few times. “Well… We don’t have to go,” he reasoned, though Crowley could sense his disappointment, “I mean, it’s not fair to you.”  
  
Crowley let out a small breath of laughter and shook his head. Only a child would talk about fairness to a demon.  
  
“Do you go every year to the service, Adam?” Aziraphale asked curiously, stirring milk into his tea.  
  
Adam put down his fork and leaned back in his chair. “Well… Me and Mum and Dad never went to Church or anythin’, but… Mum always liked the Christmas thing they put on at the Church so we’d go to that every year…”  
  
Crowley stood up, taking a deep breath and smiling despite himself. “You two go to the service,” he said, putting a hand on Adam’s head, “Don’t you worry about me.”  
  
He went to the sink and began mindlessly doing dishes. He noticed that when he was particularly upset in a way he couldn’t express, he threw himself into a menial task. It was supremely human of him to do so, and he had a theory that bringing him to their level was the only way he could feel grounded in a world suspended between temptations and miracles.  
Eventually Adam came around to him and wordlessly joined him at the sink, not having to be asked. He took a dry cloth and quietly, together, they finished the giant mound of dishes that Aziraphale had made with his baking. After he was done drying he looked up into Crowley’s face, whose slitted pupils regarded him with a strange emotion, and he slowly wrapped his arms around Crowley’s middle, closing his eyes and holding himself there for a long time. Crowley felt strange, uncomfortable– And eventually, at peace. He put an uncertain hand on the boy’s back and he looked out at the snow.  
  
Around noon, the Them appeared at the front door of number four, Hogback Lane. Crowley watched, smirking to himself, as Aziraphale fussed over the boy and dressed him in warm mittens and scarves, catching the small hand movements which signified miracles the angel was putting on the clothing to stay warm and dry as Adam played outside.  
  
“Be careful, Adam!” Aziraphale called out anxiously through the front door and the Them dragged their sleds across the lane toward one of the hilly fields near Hogback wood, “And come back before dark!”  
  
Aziraphale watched them go for a while, then closed the door, turning around and walking into the kitchen where Crowley was staring pensively out the window. He’d been doing that a lot. If he were human, he’d almost think that the season was getting him down, the cold and the dark seeping into his heart. Aziraphale sat across from him and propped up his chin with his hand, subtly admiring Crowley’s profile. The angel had been busy all night and morning baking, and now the two currently found themselves in a fortress of baked goods. Aziraphale planned on giving most of them away to the families in the village. Except for Dan Tyler’s family, who, according to Crowley, had insulted him. He may be an angel but nowhere in the job description did it say he had to give baked goods to ignorant fools.  
  
“What’s on your mind, Crowley?” he asked gently after a while. Crowley seemed to come out of his reverie and turn to Aziraphale as though he hadn’t realized the angel was there. 

“Oh… S’nothin’,” he said, sipping his coffee. Aziraphale watched his long eyelashes blink over the steam of his drink and a small smile played on his lips. He was wearing his hair long, longer than it had been in quite some time, and its reddish waves tumbled across his shoulders where he wore a thick grey sweater. It reminded him of when they had met in Golgotha to witness the death of Christ, and perhaps, spiritually, that was where Crowley was. His long fingers were wrapped around the mug and he didn’t meet Aziraphale’s eyes.  
  
“Oh come now,” Aziraphale prodded gently, bringing his tea to his lips and straightening up, “you can tell me.”  
  
Crowley leaned back in his chair and finally looked into Aziraphale’s eyes.  
  
“It’s stupid,” he said, rolling his eyes, “Don’t worry about it.”  
  
“I _do_ worry about it, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, smiling at him, “I _always_ worry about it.”  
  
Crowley sighed and shook his head, but his eyes were soft. Aziraphale was certain that any other angel could look into those slitted pupils and only see evil, but he knew what depths those eyes conveyed, what cold hatred and what deep tenderness they could contain. He found them mesmerizing, truly living up to their serpent’s reputation.  
  
“I… I wish I could go with you and Adam tonight,” Crowley confessed, in a rush, and looked away, gazing at the cupboards in an effort to avoid truly telling Aziraphale how deeply it ached that there were places he could not comfortably be with him. “It’s stupid,” he continued, shaking his head and yawning, “I know.”  
  
“It isn’t,” Aziraphale said softly, his heart hammering in his chest, “I’m very sorry you can’t be there with us. I wish… I wish you _could_ .”  
  
Crowley flicked his eyes tentatively toward him and Aziraphale projected every bit of love he felt in his heart in his direction, hoping to light a fire in his spirit to warm him. Crowley let out a heavy breath and leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table and looking directly into Aziraphale’s eyes. Aziraphale smiled softly and mimicked him. They were practically nose to nose, the heady scent of Crowley’s coffee curling into their faces. Aziraphale couldn’t help but flick his eyes down toward Crowley’s lips, which were parted slightly, pink and warm. He knew that these physical forms were impermanent and only vessels for the true nature of their spirits, but he could always see parts of Crowley’s true self shining through– And they _did_ shine, brightly. He was a demon, but he was complex, truthful, and keen. When he moved his eyes back to look into Crowley’s, the demon’s usual swagger and confidence seemed to be nothing before him, the demon shrinking into sadness and longing, wan and thin and desperate. Aziraphale reached out, his golden ring glinting in the light from the window, and tucked a piece of Crowley’s hair behind his ear.  
  
Crowley let out a long breath and closed his eyes at the angel’s touch, as though Aziraphale had given him a balm for a burning wound.  
  
“It’s alright,” Aziraphale whispered, and he felt Crowley turn his face into his palm. After a few moments, Crowley’s eyes opened again and something had changed. He had grown tall once more, his willpower returning, and he straightened up, moving gently away from Aziraphale’s hand and leaning against the chair. Aziraphale lowered his palm onto the table before him and smiled, his heart beating loudly in his chest. He knew he was glowing–– Literally glowing–– Because the room seemed brighter than before. Crowley’s eyes were filled with fire and passion once more, just the way he liked them.  
  
“I suppose I should say thank you,” said Crowley, a small smile quirking the corner of his lips, “but maybe I shouldn’t?”  
  
“You are welcome,” Aziraphale smiled. He was afraid no longer. They had both bet their lives on coming together to try and divert Adam away from ending the world, and he would be with Crowley until the end, whatever end that may be. If humanity fell and Heaven and Hell waged war, he knew in his heart that he would not fight– He would _refuse_ to fight. He had not yet been damned for daring to believe the world was not as dichotomous as Heaven and Hell said it was, and he would keep fighting for balance.  
  
The truth was that _Crowley_ was his balance, his other half. If he had to live an eternity without him, he would rather be destroyed. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting early because im busy af the next two days, also, this is like my fave bit in the whole story so hope ya'll like it <3

The graveyard was picturesque and beautiful, the light from within each stained glass window in the church casting warmth onto the crisp snow. Crowley peered through one of them, gazing through the blue skies of Golgotha that had been painted there, looking through the scene of Christ toiling under the cross like God’s eyes on the day her son returned to her. He briefly regarded it from the outside, remembering the journey he and Christ had taken together. He had met Him in a small field, and had been instructed by Beelzebub, their blue eyes flashing, to tempt the son of God. Crowley had wandered through the City of David and knew in his spirit that Christ could not be tempted–– God would have made her son of stronger stuff. He had begun to ruminate on the futility of his task when he had arrived in a rocky field, standing mere feet away from the young man’s long hair and brown skin. He was gently caressing a snowy white dove in his hand.  
  
_“You are here to tempt me,” Christ had said, without turning. Crowley had smiled. Of course Christ could see what he was–– It would be an oversight of God’s wisdom for him not to._   
  
_“I have been instructed to tempt you,” Crowley responded, dodging the question, “But I don’t think it’s going to work.”_   
  
_“I have seen you speak fondly with an angel,” the young man said, standing and smiling, “My father, God, has shown me this.”_   
  
_Crowley had been taken aback, embarrassed and feeling foolish. There was nothing that escaped the eye of God. She, after all, was everything._   
  
_“Yes,” Crowley had said, telling the truth, “Does not a demon still wish for the warmth of heaven?”_   
  
_Christ had tilted his head, considering his words. “Yes,” he had said, after a while, “Love is powerful.”_   
  
_Crowley had felt pinned by the young man’s black eyes, his gaze searing, and he was grateful he was no longer an angel, that he need not hide his form from the piercing eyes with his wings. The dove fluttered and turned to look at him. Crowley stepped back and knew the Spirit of God was in the bird, and despite himself, he knelt in the dusty field and regarded God with a smile, for it had been long since he had been able to bask in Her presence. Evil had never truly been his master, only his downfall. In the glory of Her complexity, it was impossible to feel anger._   
  
_The dove regarded him and then flew into the sky, up into the heavens._   
  
_They had gone to the top of the temple in the City of David, travelled to the top of a high mountain. He had caused a miracle to happen, had shown Christ the splendour of the world. Each time he teased him, asking if these things would not be better than following the word of God, and Christ, every time, smiled and responded with humility. Crowley quite liked him, amused that the Son of God had indulged him. As a final flourish, he had snapped his fingers, and Christ’s eyes had filled with the glory of the cosmos, the nebula, the planets, all of the stars. Once the heavens had cleared from Christ’s vision, he had turned to Crowley, his eyes filled with tears of wonder._   
  
_“Why have you shown me this?” Christ had asked._   
  
_“In the beginning, there was no evil. I too helped create the heavens, hung the stars in the sky.”_

_Christ had regarded him long over these words before nodding. “I understand.”_

In the snowy graveyard of the ancient stone Tadfield church, Crowley could hear singing, voices lilting through the windows into the rafters, flying up to God. They had begun the service. He peered passed the image of Christ and into the congregation. There, near the window, stood Adam, holding a candle. They held this service by candlelight, each member of the congregation holding their own small flame. Beside him, singing, was Aziraphale. He wondered if anyone around him suspected that they were in the presence of a real angel this Christmas, because he seemed to glow in joy and radiance in the light of the flames. His face was lit softly from below and his eyes were half closed in pleasure, his voice issuing out of him sweetly. It was not often that Aziraphale sang— He was very shy, for an angel, but his voice was clear as a bell and Crowley had once had to duck behind a wall overhearing it in the streets of Kaifang in the ninth century, tears springing to his eyes, unbidden. One of the things that demons were stripped of as they fell to the depths of Hell was their voices. They were no longer allowed to sing. Above all else, hearing Aziraphale’s song wrenched grief through his heart, weeping for what he had lost. 

He gazed at the angel and felt like Christ was staring at him once again, piercing into him, reading him like an open book. Crowley put his hand to the window, and though it burnt his hands, he traced the outline of Aziraphale through the stained glass and felt empty.

Aziraphale was where he could not follow.   
  
He was always where he could not follow.  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


Crowley was waiting for them when they returned, late in the night, bustling in through the door in a mass of coats, mittens, and hats. He had turned the lights down low, lit the electric Christmas tree lights, kindled a fire in the fireplace. Aziraphale, throwing his coat over his arm, looked about the house and smiled warmly. Crowley walked from the living room to meet them, a glass of wine in his hand from a bottle he had pilfered from the store in town. He was wearing white, for the first time since he had fallen, and the clothing felt strange on his skin. Aziraphale came over to him and held out his hand. Crowley gave him a curious look and flicked his gaze down to where the angel’s palm outstretched.   
  
In between his fingers, a simple sprig of common yarrow was held, its tiny white blossoms seeming to glow in the halflight. Where Aziraphale had gotten yarrow, and at this time of year, he did not know–– But he had lived through the eras of human history who spoke in the language of flowers to know that he was trying to tell him something. The only thing was, Crowley had a terrible memory for these sorts of things, and his breath caught trying to discern what the angel might mean by this. It wasn’t an overly detailed or rare flower– Most people referred to them as weeds. They grew by roadsides, peppering the world over, a background pop of white swaying in forgotten summer grasses. What could he possibly mean by this simple flower, this gesture?   
  
He took the yarrow in his own hand and held it up, looking into Aziraphale’s face. The angel was beaming widely at him, his blue eyes like the neverending sky. He nodded conspiratorially at him, before turning to Adam, who had begun to dig into a dessert, and chided him for eating sweets so late.   
  
“Now go to bed, dear, or Father Christmas won’t come,” he told him excitedly, putting the pudding away in the fridge.   
  
Adam rolled his eyes. “I’m _ten,_ Aziraphale, I don’t believe in Father Christmas anymore.”   
  
Aziraphale seemed startled. “Oh! Well. My!”   
  
Adam smiled at him and shook his head, coming and giving Aziraphale a hug goodnight. He came over to Crowley and wrapped his arms around him. Still holding the yarrow, and lost in thought, Crowley cursorily patted the boy on the back and he ran upstairs to brush his teeth and go to bed.   
  
Aziraphale cleaned the kitchen absently, shaking his head. “That boy,” he murmured fondly, “I have become quite attached to him, Crowley.”   
  
Too embarrassed to ask Aziraphale what the yarrow was about, he held it in his hand and wandered over to Aziraphale, who was just finishing up.   
  
“Are you gonna read tonight?” he asked him, hoping his voice was casual. He took a sip of wine. It was cheap stuff, nothing special–– But it was alcohol, and it was alcohol he felt he needed. He’d only gotten a few sips in before Aziraphale and the boy had arrived home.   
  
“ _I_ think,” Aziraphale said mischievously, “I need a little nightcap. It _is_ Christmas, after all.”   
  
Aziraphale turned and bent to reach beneath the cupboard, pulling out a large bottle of Bushmill scotch. From the shape of the bottle and the label, he could tell it was _old._ Crowley’s eyes popped out of his head and he put the wine glass down, forgetting it completely. Aziraphale straightened out and showed him the bottle, grinning.   
  
“Where were _you_ hiding that, you cheeky bastard?” he asked Aziraphale, laughing.   
  
“I’ve been saving it for a special occasion, but no occasion was ever special enough,” he replied, putting the unopened bottle on the table and retrieving two glasses from the cupboard. He had a positively gleeful expression on his face.   
  
“I picked this up at the turn of the century, and never got a chance to get into it.”   
  
“Turn of the century,” Crowley repeated, emphasizing each world and picking up the bottle to look at it. He whistled, turning it over.   
  
“What makes this occasion so special?” he asked, smirking, pointing teasingly at Aziraphale with the sprig of yarrow.   
  
Aziraphale looked ever so slightly crestfallen, as though he had said something important and not been heard, and the conversation had gone elsewhere. Crowley blinked and noticed it, but didn’t know how to recover.   
  
“Well… We are trying our best, but… We do not know what will happen… This may be our last Christmas, Crowley,” he said, some nervousness entering his voice. He looked down briefly before lifting his head again, smiling.   
  
“But enough of that sort of talk. I want to _enjoy_ myself, and I want to enjoy this bottle of scotch with you.”   
  
The scotch was delicious, and very, very strong. They drank the whole bottle together, seated in the living room by the fireside, laughing and joking and reminiscing. Crowley held onto the yarrow flower the entire coversation, and, now very drunk, caught Aziraphale’s attention and put the yarrow behind his ear, making a stupid face. Aziraphale, bright red in the face, giggled loudly and leaned back in his chair, a hand on his chest, spilling some of the priceless alcohol onto his pants.   
  
“Oop!” he exclaimed, chortling, “Thas’ a waste!”   
  
After his laughter subsided, he looked to Crowley with a watery, drunken eye, a sloppy smile still on his face.   
  
“You’ve no idea… wha’ th’yarrow flow-urr means, do yeh?” he asked, regarding Crowley like a doting schoolmaster over his glass.   
  
Crowley licked his lips, trying to contain his laughter. He tried desperately to school his expression into neutral territory but failed, miserably. He burst out laughing, throwing back his head.   
  
“NO IDEA!” he roared, “I wusss too embarr-essed to ask.”   
  
Aziraphale shushed him, giggling, pointing upstairs to where Adam was sleeping, and readjusted himself in his seat.   
  
“Well ‘en,” he said, waving his head back and forth teasingly, “M’not tellin’ you! Find out yesself!”   
  
“Wot! Noffair!” Crowley exclaimed, his mouth widening in amused anger, “ _you_ gaveit t’me! Y’could at _least_ tell me!”   
  
“Nuh-uh,” Aziraphale grinned at him, leaning in and jutting his chin forward mockingly, “No way! No way.”   
  
“Wai-- Wait! I don’t gotta lookup in the booksh, I can… I’m gon’ google it!” Crowley yelled in triumph, pulling out his smartphone and holding it up to his face.   
  
Aziraphale looked shocked and offended, reaching out to swat at his arm. “Don’ do that!” he called out, laughing.   
  
“Shiri,” Crowley said sassily to his phone, “whaddoes ‘yarrow flower’ mean in flow-hurr language?”   
  
He looked down. The screen of his phone was dark and he furrowed his brow, confused. He tried to turn it on but the battery flashed red on the screen. _Of course._   
  
“Oh bugger, o’course,” Crowley growled, a small smile still on his face, “m’phone is fuckin’ dead.”   
  
“Thas wha’ y’ get!” Aziraphale said, making himself comfortable in his chair, “y’gotta fig-er it out.”   
  
“Ugh,” Crowley said, leaning back, replacing the stalk of yarrow behind his ear, “M’gonna go to bed… Adam’s gon’ be up ah’... Ah’ crow piss. I need ah… Little rest, I’think.”   
  
Aziraphale rolled his shoulders, his eyes sleepy. “Mn. Me too.”   
  
The two drunken otherworldly beings stumbled up the stairs and into the master bedroom. Crowley, in his clothes, crawled into bed and lay on the covers, too drunk and too sleepy to care. Aziraphale clumsily undressed and re-dressed in pyjamas, unmindful of Crowley’s watching eye. He was glowing and wonderful and Crowley loved him, very deeply. The ring he had bought was sitting innocently on the dresser, in plain sight, for Aziraphale to see whenever he wished. He hadn’t seen it yet though, or at least, had not mentioned it. Aziraphale climbed into bed and covered himself in blankets, turning toward Crowley and curling his hands near the pillow. Crowley, on his back, turned to regard Aziraphale for the moment and blinked slowly, like a cat. He pulled the yarrow from his ear and held it on his chest, like a bride’s bouquet, both of his hands clasping its leafy stalk.   
  
They were silent for many minutes before Crowley gathered up the courage to speak up.   
  
“Aziraphale,” he began softly, his voice barely above a whisper, “I heard yeh singin’ once, in Kaifang. Long, long ago.”   
  
Aziraphale looked at him and blinked, seeming a little embarrassed. “Oh, m’not that good of a singer... Not like Gabriel or… er… Sandalphon–”   
  
“It was so beautiful I cried,” Crowley cut across him boldly, his chest rising and falling rapidly, his eyes wide, willing his voice to cut through the mire of his drunkenness to be clear and contrite. Aziraphale blinked in surprise, swallowing. 

“Thas’... Wha’ I miss most,” Crowley explained, haltingly, “bein’ a demon… Y’can’t… Sing anymore. Thas’ why I was… Jealous tonight.”   
  
Explaining himself was difficult and he internally begged Aziraphale to understand.   
  
Aziraphale did understand. He always understood.   
  
As the snow fell softly on the eaves of the town, Aziraphale sat up and opened his mouth and began to sing, very, very quietly at first, then louder until the room was filled with the unworldly, ethereal notes that only angels knew. Crowley lay, staring at the ceiling, unable to look at him, for ashy black tears were streaming down his face. Because he could not clutch Aziraphale close to him he clutched the yarrow to his chest instead.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heres some more sappy shite for ya'll cause i love it, im getting close to where i've written up to so chapters might fall back onto a weekly updating schedule as opposed to a bi-weekly so i can write some more. ya'll are stars, i love every one of you. <3

Deep in the wettest, moistest, most unpleasantly damp cells of Hell’s lowest basement offices, a beast growled deep and low, its entire body vibrating with hunger and savagery. It was dog-shaped, though it blurred the lines of being a dog in many counts, particularly when it came to its skin, its teeth, its size, and pretty much everything else about it. Loosely, it could be called a dog, but ‘four legged, hellish menace’ was a more accurate descriptor. It knew that it was to take up the honourable mantle of Guard in service of its future master, the Anti-Christ, the son of the Great Lord of Darkness, Angel of the Bottomless Pit. It was the only thought that consumed it, as it paced its damp cell, day in and day out, waiting for the glorious moment when his Master would call him and he would join him in Armageddon. 

Hellhounds did not, as a general rule, keep any kind of calendars about their confines, but this hellhound had the distinct sense that it was a little too early for his Master to be calling him. The Hellhound could have sworn that it had only been ten years since the Anti-Christ child had ascended to earth, not eleven, which was supposed to be his cue. He walked out of his cell, looking about at the denizens of hell who shuffled and moaned onwards on their endless torments, and was a little peeved that there wasn’t more of a to do awaiting his departure. His ascension to earth was The Marker, the thing that told everyone that Armageddon was well and truly on its way. Nobody seemed to have noticed that he was leaving. Perhaps they had lost track of time? Or maybe they were just busy. Wars needed an awful lot of preparation, after all. 

The Hellhound brushed these thoughts from its mind, focusing on the task at hand. Regardless of his departure, he had definitely felt his master’s call. It was time to ascend to earth and to set the events of Armageddon into motion.  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
  


Crowley cracked his eyes open at the sound of someone knocking enthusiastically on a door. He grumbled and turned his head to the right, finding Aziraphale’s face squished into a pillow beside him, his mouth open, sleeping like he had no care in the world. Crowley blinked blearily. He must have fallen asleep to Aziraphale’s song. He sat up and the sprig of yarrow he had been given fell off of his chest onto the bed in front of him. He blinked at it for a few moments before holding it up to the morning light. It wasn’t wilted, or damaged in any way. Crowley smiled. Aziraphale had probably blessed it to never die.    
  
He stood up slowly and put it on the dresser, arranging it beside the golden band of vines and admired them together for a moment.    
  
The knocking picked up its pace and fervour and Crowley shook his head, turning to look at the closed bedroom door. Aziraphale, still curled up in bed, snorted slightly and opened his eyes, looking around confusedly.    
  
“Happy Christmas, angel,” Crowley said, coming to stand at the foot of the bed and jerking his head toward the door, “Should we let the little devil in?”    
  
Aziraphale blinked and sat up, rubbing his eyes. He yawned sleepily and nodded.    
  
Crowley opened the door and Adam came barreling in, running passed Crowley and jumping up onto the bed where Aziraphale was lying on his back, still coming to life. He jumped up and down on the mattress, jostling him.    
  
“It’s Christmas!” Adam shouted enthusiastically, “Let’s open presents!”    
  
The boy slammed himself down on the mattress and turned to Aziraphale. “Come on, sleepy head! It’s Christmas!”    
  
“Yeah, Aziraphale, it’s  _ Christmas _ . Stop being so  _ lazy, _ ” Crowley teased, smirking, standing with his hands in his pockets by the door. His clothes were dishevelled and stale, but he found he didn’t much care.    
  
“Yes, yes, alright… Go on,” Aziraphale yawned, smiling and pushing Adam gently between his shoulder blades, “Let’s go.”    
  
Adam didn’t have to be told twice. He leapt off the bed and ran downstairs, careening around the railing into the living room where the Christmas tree stood. Crowley shook his head, perpetually amazed by how much energy young humans had, and followed him. Aziraphale followed close behind, pulling on a fuzzy bathrobe and tying it around himself. Adam was practically vibrating when they made it to the living room, poking around the perfectly wrapped gifts beneath the tree. Crowley flopped onto the couch, spreading out, and admired the colourful packages. Aziraphale had gotten carried away, of course, and the tree at Number 4, Hogback Lane looked like a paid advertisement for wrapping paper. Crowley, tasked with shopping, also had no real sense of how many gifts a child received at Christmas nowadays, and as money hadn’t exactly been an issue, he had perhaps  _ also _ gotten a bit carried away.    
  
“ _ Woops, _ ” Crowley mouthed silently, shrugging and tilting his head toward the mound of gifts. Aziraphale, sitting in the armchair near the fireplace, put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing out loud.    
  
“This is more presents than anythin’ I’ve ever had!” Adam exclaimed in awe, turning around to stare at them with wide eyes.    
  
“Yes, well… We wanted you to have a good Christmas,” Aziraphale explained, chuckling to himself.    
  
“Open ‘em,” Crowley said, gesturing broadly to the tree, “Whichever one you want first.”    
  
Adam spent the next half hour tearing open gift after gift, his excitement never abating one iota as he added toys, craft supplies, books, and other knick knacks to his ever growing pile. When he was finally finished, he stood up, regarding the giant pile of gifts and looked back to them. He bounded toward Aziraphale first, throwing his arms around him. Aziraphale laughed happily and placed a small kiss on the boy’s head. He then ran to Crowley and jumped up on the couch, throwing his arms around him. Crowley snorted fondly and draped a long arm around the boy’s shoulders.    
  
“Oh stop it,” he teased.    
  
“Well,” Aziraphale announced, sitting up straighter in his chair, “I suppose I’ll start with breakfast–”    
  
“You haven’t opened your gifts yet, though!” Adam called out, standing. “See, I put them right here!”    
  
Aziraphale paused and looked to Crowley, a bemused expression on his face. “Oh– Oh! Sorry, dear, we didn’t realize.”    
  
Adam pulled a gift from beneath the tree, wrapped much less expertly in green paper decorated with pine cones. He handed the package to Aziraphale and gestured for Crowley to join him. Crowley stood up lazily and meandered over, sitting on the arm of Aziraphale’s chair. Adam sat on the rug in front of them, smiling expectantly. Aziraphale smiled warmly and carefully unwrapped the gift.    
  
Inside, were two figures, made of wire, popsicle sticks, and fabric. They were white and black, and had a set of wings each. They were joined at the hands, both holding up a daisy that Adam had made by weaving string and gluing pom poms.    
  
“It’s you guys,” Adam explained excitedly, “See? That’s the angel and that’s the demon, and they’re holdin’ the daisies from the garden party this summer.”    
  
Aziraphale was blinking rapidly, because though this was by no means a master work of art, it was obvious that Adam had spent many hours weaving together the wood, wire, fabric and string to create the little figurines. When he held this object, he sensed the same love he felt when he walked through Hogback Wood, the same love that surrounded Tadfield like a soft blanket. Crowley, beside him, was smiling because he recognized the structure of the piece. It was the one Adam had begun on his birthday, after they had given him a box of craft supplies.    
  
“It’s  _ beautiful _ , Adam,” Aziraphale complimented, his eyes shining, turning it over and looking at it from every angle, “Thank you.”    
  
“That’s what you were workin’ on the night of your birthday,” Crowley smirked, tapping a long finger on the top of the demon figure’s head, “isn’t it?”    
  
“Yeah,” Adam said, leaning back, “I got the idea then.”    
  
“It is just wonderful, Adam, really,” Aziraphale enthused, and the boy glowed from his praise. Aziraphale stood and took the figures over to the fireplace, where he moved a few things to place them at the centre of the mantlepiece. “There! I think that’s the perfect spot for it.”    
  
Aziraphale turned and ruffled Adam’s curly hair, smiling softly at him. “Why don’t we do some breakfast, now?” he offered, and Adam leapt up from the carpet and ran into the kitchen.    
  
“Can we do pancakes?” he called.    
  
“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale laughed, calling after him. Crowley had not left his spot, perched on the arm of the chair. He was watching Aziraphale, his expression hard to read. Aziraphale blinked and looked at him questioningly.    
  
“What is it, dear?” he asked gently, coming to stand near him.    
  
“Nothing,” Crowley admitted, smiling a small, genuine smile, his slitted eyes wide and glowing, “Just… Just you, is all.”    
  
“What about me?” Aziraphale asked, raising his eyebrows. Almost absentmindedly, he reached out and adjusted the collar of Crowley’s white shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles by running his warm hands against his shoulders. Crowley blinked at him, his serpentine eyes widening slightly, before he closed them and laughed.    
Aziraphale thought it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard because it was soft hearted in a way that most of Crowley’s laughter wasn’t. “Nothing, angel,” he replied, finally, “It’s nothing.”    
  
Aziraphale shook his head, his face kind. “Happy Christmas, my dear,” he said, retracting his hands from Crowley’s frame and instead reaching out to rub his long-fingered hand, which was draped over his knee.    
  
“Happy Christmas, angel,” Crowley murmured back, his lips quirked upwards in a small and genuine smile. He lifted his fingers and, without breaking eye contact, threaded their hands together on his knee. 

Aziraphale was caught in Crowley’s eyes, so many emotions passing between them that he felt he might explode. Crowley was always cool to the touch, something he had discovered in slow, painful passings throughout the centuries. 

He blinked. 

_ Crowley’s dark robes hung around him and he turned in the rain that was cascading down upon the valley, the flood that God had decreed beginning without mercy. His eyes were full of disbelief, even hurt— They were childlike and he was confused and once again betrayed by his creator. He turned to leave, giving Aziraphale a dark look, judging him for his complacency, and as though he were possessed, Aziraphale reached out and grabbed Crowley’s wrist. They stared long at once another until Aziraphale let go as though he had been burned. He couldn’t touch a demon, he couldn’t… The wounds on his back from his demotion had barely healed. He wouldn’t risk it again.  _

Crowley’s face seemed closer than before. Were his lips always so sweet looking? 

_ He saw Crowley laughing and joking with the men, her eyes glinting mischievously. Aziraphale looked in on the scene, saw the wine, the lilting dances of the Bacchae, Crowley the crown jewel among the white robed women. She was resplendent and Aziraphale entered the courtyard and her eyes caught him. He did not dance because he had been instructed to perform a miracle, but as she passed him, he found that their hands brushed together ever so slightly, and Aziraphale felt endless starscapes at her touch. She was visceral and intense and sweet and most importantly, she was  _ Crowley.  _ He was safe— In passing touches, he was safe.  _

Aziraphale swallowed, his eyes clouding over, his head nearer to Crowley’s face than he had ever remembered it being. 

_ He saw thousands of years of casual touches, small gestures, accidental contact. He was in Japan, and so was Crowley, and their hands met as he passed him a cup of tea. He was in the Bahamas, and a flower had caught his eye, and he was putting it down and their pinkies brushed by one another. He passed a bottle of wine to him in the bookshop. Guiltily, gleefully, he recalled Crowley’s touches, brushing his hair from his eyes, landing on him drunk, the  _ kiss Crowley had planted on his cheek… 

Touching Crowley was a pleasure, it always had been– but touching Crowley without fear was something different entirely. He found it was like a drug, that he could not get enough, his desire to physically enjoy Crowley’s presence overcoming his deep seated fears of heaven. His eyes fluttered closed because he felt what was going to happen, knew in his heart that Crowley was leaning in, his lips so near… 

“Can we  _ eat now, _ please?” Adam groaned, peeking around the wall into the living room, “I’m  _ starving! _ ” 

Aziraphale and Crowley separated, startled. Adam gave them a withering look and they jumped away from each other. 

“Seriously? Ew,” the boy groaned, walking back into the kitchen. 

Aziraphale and Crowley caught each other’s eye and wordlessly agreed it was best they look away, lest Adam starve.


	17. Chapter 17

“You’ll like it, I promise!” Adam called over his shoulder, dragging a long wooden toboggan behind him in the snow. 

“Oh… Oh I don’t know…,” Aziraphale said apprehensively, following behind and picking his way through the snowy field. Crowley loped along beside him, a long black wool coat draped over his body and a ushanka hat made of grey fur covering his head. The sides of the hat flapped in the cold breeze drifting along the countryside, creaking through the bare trees. He was also dragging a toboggan, the string curled around his gloved left hand. Aziraphale paused for a moment, looking up at the high, sloping hill they were headed toward and grimaced. 

Crowley stopped walking and turned around, gesturing widely and grinning. “Oh come now, angel! This isn’t going to be as scary or as dangerous as drivin’ with me! It’s just a sled.”

Aziraphale, covered in a big wool coat of light beige, swallowed nervously. 

“You can  _ control  _ the car, Crowley… And even though you do it in a rather terrifying way at least you actually  _ have  _ control! Those things are just… You just have to go where they go.” He adjusted his blue and white striped knitted hat, the pom pom on top flopping forward. He gave Crowley’s toboggan a dirty look. 

“Come on, Aziraphale!” Adam called, far ahead and already halfway up the hill, “it’s gonna be fun!” 

“See?” Crowley smiled, leaning his head down so he could peer at Aziraphale over the rim of his sunglasses, “it’s gonna be fun.” 

He reached his right hand out and Aziraphale gave a long-suffering sigh, taking it. Crowley helped him around a particularly high snow drift and then snaked his arm through Aziraphale’s arm and held onto the crook of his elbow, escorting him up the slope. The way Aziraphale was walking, Crowley may as well have been leading him to the gallows. Adam was waiting impatiently for them at the top, shifting restlessly from foot to foot. 

“Finally!” the boy exclaimed, righting his sled so it was facing the steeper part of the snowy slope. He sat on it and looked over his shoulder, grinning and making sure Aziraphale and Crowley were watching him. 

“Can you give me a push, Crowley?” 

Crowley smirked and handed Aziraphale the lead for his sled, which the angel took reluctantly. Crowley stepped forward and bent down, putting his hands on Adam’s back. He began to run, pushing the boy with a mighty shove before the sled went over the threshold of the hill and he was off, flying across the snowy countryside to land a long distance away near the edge of the field. Adam dramatically flew himself off the sled at the last second and rolled into the snow. 

Aziraphale jumped in fear before the boy leapt up into the air, laughing loudly. 

“THAT WAS WICKED!” he screamed up at them happily. 

Crowley grinned and turned to Aziraphale. 

“Well? Are we going?” 

Aziraphale tittered and gave him the rope for the toboggan. “I’ll walk down, thanks,” he sniffed. Crowley rolled his eyes. 

Adam was making his way quickly up the hill, dragging his sled behind him. 

“That was GREAT!” he enthused breathlessly, finally reaching them, “You  _ gotta try it!”  _

“Get on the sled, you tit,” Crowley drawled at Aziraphale, dragging it to where Adam had placed his before he launched, “I’m taller so I’ll sit behind you. You won’t fall out that way.” 

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll still fall out… ,” Aziraphale muttered, displeased. Despite himself, he joined Crowley, awkwardly climbing onto the front of the sled and tucking his feet into the front. He held onto the front of the toboggan with an iron grip. Behind him, Crowley clicked his tongue fondly and climbed in the back. His long legs wrapped around Aziraphale and he braced his snow-covered boots against the front curve of the sled, encasing the angel. He pulled the string over them like he were directing a horse and wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s shoulders. 

“I’ll give you a push!” Adam called, crunching through the snow and putting his hands against Crowley’s back. The snow was the perfect texture, level between watery and icy, and the track Adam had made had already frozen into a sleek trail. In reality, Adam wasn’t strong enough to push the physical bodies of two adults in a sled, but Crowley wasn’t about to let that stop them. He snapped his fingers and the boy let go, launching them down the steep, smooth slope. 

The moment they curved downward, Aziraphale began to scream in fear and exhilaration. The wind whipped past them as they flew down the slope and across the field. Crowley cackled. They completely shot past where Adam had landed and continued through the small wooded area, busting through underbrush and through snow drifts until they were finally stopped by a particularly resolute slope which sent the sled sideways, throwing them off into the snowy forest floor. Aziraphale fell bodily from the sled, falling to the side and rolling. Crowley, his long legs hooked around the angel in front of him, flew off with him. They tumbled down the small glen and finally landed in a heap together under a lightly snowy patch of ground beneath a large tree. 

Aziraphale was flat on his back, his arms and legs spread out. Crowley, one of his feet still hooked beneath Aziraphale’s leg, landed half on top of him, his torso lying sideways on Aziraphale’s hand-knitted blue sweater. They were silent for many minutes, breathing heavily. 

“Told you,” gasped Aziraphale, lifting a hand and patting Crowley’s arm, “Told you I’d fall off.” 

Crowley grimaced, lifting his head. His ushanka hat had flown off somewhere along their ride and his long reddish hair flew in his face. His sunglasses were crooked. 

“Might’ve… Might’ve overdone it,” he muttered, slowly finding his hand and bracing it against the forest floor, lifting his torso off of Aziraphale. Beneath him, the angel lay flat and stared up at the ceiling of the forest, shaking his head. A small smile was slowly forming on his lips, one that he tried to hide. He couldn’t. He brought a hand to his mouth and closed his eyes, laughter slowly bubbling up to the surface. 

Crowley snorted and bit his lip. A laugh finally escaped uproariously from Aziraphale’s lips and Crowley couldn’t help but join in. They laughed so hard that tears formed in their eyes. They didn’t know how long they laughed, but Crowley’s belly felt taught and sore by the time they could finally look at each other without exploding in another fit of giggles. Aziraphale wiped his eyes with his hands as Crowley stood, awkwardly lifting himself up to his feet. He extended a hand to Aziraphale, who took it and used it to stand up. 

After retrieving their scattered items, they quickly made their way back from where they had come. 

“I’m surprised Adam hasn’t come after us,” Aziraphale commented, following behind the toboggan that Crowley was pulling along.

“He’s probably gone down a few times without us,” Crowley shrugged, finally coming out to the edge of the field, “he’s—“ 

Crowley stopped dead. 

Behind him, Aziraphale almost tripped on the sled. 

“Crowley? What— Oh good Lord!” 

Crowley was gazing up at the hill, frozen, to where Adam was sitting, his back turned to the North toward the village. His toboggan was beside him. He was making a little snowman, rolling little spheres in the ground. Behind him, slowly advancing up the hill, was a dog. 

Or, at least, it was shaped like a dog. It was somehow bigger than any dog that had ever walked on earth, somehow more muscled, it’s fur more matted and made up of a black, impenetrable void. It crept toward the boy’s back like it were hunting, its head low. It had an inconceivable amount of long, savage teeth that were bared in a grimace reserved for the stuff of nightmares. They glinted horrifically in the wintry sun that had broken out across the field. Its eyes were twin red coals that seemed to burn and smoke in its skull. 

In front of it, completely unaware, Adam was finishing up his little snow creation. It too looked somewhat like a dog, if very small and a little lumpy. He was making little details, taking a stick and putting it in what appeared to be the back of the little snow creature, marking a tail. Then he put two rocks at the front of the snow creature to stand as beady little eyes. Adam stopped, leaning back and regarding his little dog made of snow. He seemed both pleased and very sad at the same time. 

Then, something very strange happened. 

Crowley and Aziraphale watched in amazement as the terrifying beast behind the boy seemed to pause, tilting its head curiously in a way that was very inappropriate to its body, as though it were listening to something. 

“I just want a dog,” Adam said wistfully to no one in particular, his voice carrying across the field, “a smart, little, cool dog I can teach tricks. Something to be… My friend. I think… and I think I’d just name him Dog. Saves a lot of trouble, a name like that.” 

Crowley and Aziraphale blinked. Their eyes had been trained somewhere on the horizon, fixed on the massive, hulking figure of the hellhound. It wasn’t there anymore. They blinked several more times before a yappy, excited bark echoed throughout the meadow. Crowley and Aziraphale refocused their eyes and noticed that where the great hellhound had been standing, a small black and white Jack Russell terrier was avidly barking and jumping up and down. 

“What— What?” 

“Reality,” Crowley whispered, “he bent reality. He wanted a dog...” 

“What… _ Oh dear… _ ,” Aziraphale breathed, stepping forward and putting a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, gazing up the hill in horror. At the top, Adam had spun around at the sound of the dog’s barking and was excitedly greeting the mutt. 

“He’s named it,” Crowley muttered, “That’s it… The naming’s supposed to trigger it… Armageddon.” 

“Oh…  _ Fuck, _ ” Aziraphale swore. 

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ

“Well… I suppose it’s more complicated than that,” Crowley sighed. 

“He’s named it! We’re completely… We’re…  _ Crowley! _ ” Aziraphale sputtered hysterically. 

“Angel, please! Just— Gimme a second to think.” 

Crowley bit his lip, his hands drumming impatiently on the table in front of him, sitting across from Aziraphale in the kitchen. He looked out of the window and watched as Adam introduced Dog to the Them, who were crowded around the little mutt excitedly. Dog was barking and running in circles, appearing to all the world a perfectly normal little hound. Crowley sneered at it, but it, of course, did not notice. Dog had faces to lick, and was therefore quite busy. If any vestiges of the Hellhound existed within its tiny, furry body, Dog was doing a very good job at hiding it. Crowley clicked his tongue, leaning back in his chair.    
  
“Well, if I remember, the name works like… A spell, sort of,” Crowley explained, his eyes closed, rubbing his temples, “The name’s supposed to define the Hellhound’s purpose in life… If he was a proper Anti-Christ he would’ve named it Ripper or Stalks-By-Night or Blood Drinker… But  _ of course  _ he named it  _ Dog…  _ Honestly, for a kid who’s so creative, that’s a bloody terrible name...” 

Aziraphale, who had been pacing the kitchen apprehensively, sat down with a huff, blinking rapidly and thinking. 

“So… So what you’re saying is that Adam bent reality because he wanted a little dog to be his friend… And he defined what that meant by calling it  _ Dog?”  _

“Well I mean… Words got power, right? ‘Dog’... That’s got a lot of history… Dogs are supposed to be man’s best friend, yeah? That doesn’t sound like… Doesn’t sound like a kid who wants to destroy the world…”

“No… No, I suppose not,” Aziraphale agreed, raising his eyebrows, “but… Crowley, regardless… Won’t heaven and hell take this as a  _ sign _ ? Won’t they take this as confirmation that the war is still to happen?” 

“ _ Hnng, _ ” Crowley groaned, “maybe… I dunno. No idea, really. The dog was supposed to come on his 11th birthday… They cocked that up too…” 

“What if Adam… What if  _ Adam  _ was the one who summoned him?” Aziraphale suggested curiously, “he was quite adamant about getting a dog for Christmas.” 

“Well I can’t likely ask the bloody dog,” Crowley grumbled, closing his eyes. 

“No, no… But you  _ could  _ ask hell…” 

Crowley’s eyes flew open and he gave Aziraphale a withering look. 

“Angel, you are extremely clever, and I respect you, but that’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. In case you forgot, we’re both doing something pretty fuckin’  _ dangerous _ here by disobeying their orders. I’d rather not pop down to hell to see  _ what’s up _ .” 

Aziraphale sighed deeply. “Well, I… I suppose not.”    
  
They both sat in silence, tense, waiting for the forces of Heaven and Hell to come crashing down any minute. The clock ticked on and on.    
  
Nothing happened.    



	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late chapter posting, last night i straight up just drank a bunch of beer and watched the first two lord of the rings movies lmao

Over the course of humanity’s long history, an innumerable amount of scholars, artists, theologians, and bored Sunday school children have spent a considerable amount of thought regarding the first war– that is, the war in heaven, the conflict which separated angel from demon and created the first two realms. Most depictions focus upon the heroism of the angels, Michael’s shining sword striking valiantly at lowly, ugly fiends, ablaze in God’s wrath. Less common were images depicting angels after they had fallen, their sadness, their weeping, shows of sympathy for those who had dared to ask questions only to be cruelly punished. Even less, if any, even came close to reality. 

The war in heaven was not so much a  _ war _ as it was a  _ massacre.  _

Only two angels actually fought, Lucifer against Michael, with billions of angels gazing on in trepidation, clutching each other, desperate for the conflict to be over, for harmony to be restored. Some agreed with Lucifer, some did not— But they all agreed they wanted the fighting to end. The feeling of discord was the first felt in the long history of God’s creations, and it would not be the last. All of the angels thought that it  _ would  _ be. They were mistaken. 

_ Michael’s spear struck true and a trillion eyes wept in sorrow, for Lucifer was one of them. He fell to his knees and looked up to the light of heaven and cried out, spitting poison. Then, they all felt something shift. God was in heaven and She was  _ angry _.  _ _ Lucifer was cast down into darkness with no word. She only spared a single lightning bolt and his body fell like a stone through the firmament of the heavens. A billion mouths cried out in anguish, even Michael, who had struck the blow. He was the first Fallen, and what they all prayed would be the last. They were once again mistaken. _

_ God’s wrath was a molten burst of light, and it burned them all, rending their bodies, pulling them apart. Gabriel, watching Michael weep, held two angels close to him. One had dark hair and blue eyes, the light skin of their face decorated in a swathe gold from their cheek to their mouth, a birthmark of God’s touch. The other was called Uriel, and they had dark skin lightly decorated in flecks of gold on their temples. The three of them huddled, on their knees, shielding their eyes from the glory of God with their wings.  _

_ He felt the angel on his left move in a strange way, and he looked and found them trembling. Lightning bolts struck seemingly at random, eviscerating angels and sending them careening down from heaven, away from their lovers, their companions, their friends.  _

_ “I doubted…,” gasped the angel on his left, “I doubted… I doubted….” _

_ Gabriel, who knew them well, tried to understand what they were saying. Another strike of white hot lightning, and he could see the angel’s bright blue eyes falling further and further away from him. He reached down and screamed and screamed and screamed, because the angel’s name no longer existed and he had never before felt anguish. Beside him, Uriel huddled, their eyes squeezed shut and gripped his shoulder tightly, muttering under their breath, shaking. _

_ Gabriel looked at the terror in heaven with deep despair. He watched as a beautiful angel with deep red hair ran for another with light blonde locks, only to be struck, falling, while the blonde angel screamed. Gabriel looked down into the terrible hole God had bored through heavens and he gasped, because he could see the blue eyed angel but they were no longer a creature of their world. They had flies buzzing about their head, and their wings were burning away, ashy and black. Their eyes were turning dark and he watched as the beautiful gold marks on their face bubbled and burned. He stared at them from on high and memorized their face, every detail.  _

One day, in order to sate his curiosity, Gabriel asked Uriel if they remembered the blue eyed angel with dark hair, and they had raised an eyebrow at him.   
  
“No,” they had replied, in their calm and sure way, “I don’t.”   
  
Gabriel remembered that they had had their eyes closed in terror on that fateful day, and didn’t ask further.   
  
He decided to ask Michael, who had frozen as though he had struck her.   
  
“Excuse me?”   
  
Gabriel had immediately felt unsure, an uncomfortable feeling he did not enjoy, and regretted asking her.  
  
“Oh, nevermind, I was being… Foolish, is all.”   
  
Michael had her back turned to him, and she stood still for a few moments before turning to him.   
  
“I only remember… _His face,_ ” she whispered fearfully, her eyes thousands of years away from him, staring at Lucifer’s angry eyes, “and then I knew my name.” Gabriel had blinked his violet eyes and said nothing.  
  
He did not bother asking Sandalphon, because he knew Sandalphon would not remember. He would have forced himself not to remember.   
  
He wondered if all the other angels had forgotten. He wondered if some, like him, still wondered and remembered and grieved, in silence and in fear.   
  
Gabriel flicked his hand across the globe floating in the light of heaven and traced a finger over the little island where his Principality was stationed. He narrowed his eyes and his jaw clenched. What had this angel been doing down there all this time, to have such an obvious familiarity with the demon he was supposed to be thwarting? He supposed it made sense– They were the only two non-human entities down there aside from the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse. He was perturbed by their relationship, their easy glances. What disturbed him wasn’t the way Aziraphale looked at the demon Crowley, but rather, the way the demon looked at Aziraphale. He had been working hard against the forces of Hell since before the creation of time. He, and the rest of the angels, understood themselves to be the heroes, the ones burdened with righteous purpose.   
  
Then he had seen _love_ , of all things, shining like a gentle beacon out of the demon Crowley’s eyes. Not lust, not desire, not greed– _Love._   
  
Gabriel blinked and remembered when they had cut Aziraphale’s wings so he could not hide his body, and he clenched his jaw. He hadn’t wanted to– None of them had wanted to. In truth, they had not done such a thing _since_. They hadn’t needed to. The other angels had gotten the message. He looked down into the islands dotting the Aegean Sea on the slowly rotating globe and wondered, with some fear, if they had performed an act of senseless cruelty.   
  
“Gabriel.”   
  
He turned and made eye contact with Michael, who was gazing at him with her flinty grey eyes. He let his face melt into an expression of calm assuredness. He was the Archangel Gabriel, and he was _still_ the Archangel Gabriel. God had not damned him or any other angel for their actions since the first had Fallen.   
  
And yet…   
  
He tried to quash the feeling, but it was _there._  
  
Doubt.   
  
_“I doubted,”_ the terrified voice of the blue eyed, dark haired angel whispered at the back of his mind, “ _I doubted… I doubted…_ ”   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
Daegon, Master of Torments and Lord of the Files, blinked rapidly and flicked a tongue across their sharp teeth. _Something_ was _amiss. Something_ was _not correct_.   
  
They went through their files again, flicking through the yellowing pages. Some were covered in slime, and some had mysterious dark staines splattered across them, but each was meticulously labelled, meticulously arranged, and meticulously placed in a carefully labeled cabinet. Deagon did not make _mistakes._   
  
Hellhound 10-21. The one they had bred to be the Lesser Beast, was _gone._ Vanished. Disappeared. And, more infuriatingly, _without completing proper paperwork!_ They stared at the blank sheet, trembling in growing fury, regarding the empty boxes and lines where the demon in charge of the hound was supposed to tick and sign.   
  
“ _Fools!_ ” Deagon thought, enraged, “ _Absolute incompetent, useless worms!”_  
  
They stalked through the dingy halls of Hell, the incomplete form clutched in their first, and made their way through the throngs of moaning and groaning demons until they came to the cell of Hellhound 10-21. They slid open the viewing hole, and looked cursorily inside. Finding it empty, they slammed it shut, shaking their head.   
  
They stalked back to their office and sat down, filling out the form properly. Sighing in relief, looking at the bleeding ink filling ticked boxes and signed signatures, they placed it, still wet, in its proper file. They put the form it in its proper filing cabinet and turned back to the mounds of paperwork on their desk without a backwards glance.   
  
_I have to do everything myself around here,_ they thought moodily, stamping a sheet of paper with their sigil, _honestly…_  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


Crowley and Aziraphale spent the majority of January quite tense, waiting for the consequences of their actions to come crashing down on them. They didn’t. The days and weeks dragged on, and eventually both had begun to relax once more. Not  _ fully _ relax, but enough that they both made the educated guess that regardless of the Hellhound’s early arrival, the forces of Heaven and Hell had decided to maintain the prophesized date rather than jump the gun. They were both a little amazed that they hadn’t heard from their superiors… But then again, both Lord Beelzebub and the Archangel Gabriel had called the whole thing  _ “inevitable. _ ” 

It was now early February. Usually, winter was long and wet and dark— But in Tadfield, it was pleasant, snowy, and seemed somehow  _ just a bit  _ brighter than in other places, despite the sun setting at exactly the same time as anywhere else. Despite the extremely agreeable weather, there still wasn’t very much to do. With more free time than ever before, Crowley explored himself. He began to read. He wasn’t reading anything particularly  _ high brow _ , but it was reading all the same. He had found a collection of small paperbacks tucked away on a shelf on what he guessed had been Mrs. Young’s side of the bedroom, and had curiously picked up one of them by its scarlet spine and inspected it. 

_ The Billionaire’s Mistress,  _ he read. On the cover, an impossibly handsome, shirtless man embraced an impossibly beautiful woman in white negligee in what could only be a bed with silk sheets. Crowley grinned, flipping through the pages and catching a few obviously dirty scenes. He’d lain back down on the bed and began reading, for fun. He finished the book he had picked up in a few short hours, and then he’d picked up another one. By the third one, he was exploring himself a bit more…  _ literally.  _ His lip caught in his teeth.

He may be an otherworldly being, but even he could have his human, physical vices. Aziraphale had food… Why couldn’t he have one? His foot twitched and he put his knee to the side, laying his book page down on his chest. He closed his eyes. 

_ A garden. What garden? Any garden. Beautiful trees and flowers—Because  _ He _ would like them. It didn’t matter. They are background noise to his splendour, his brightness, his love. His body is against his. He is being kissed, all over, and he is looking at him mischievously because he knows what he does to him.  _

_ “I want you,” he says, his white blonde curls over his eyes, “I want you, Crowley.”  _

_ Crowley, beneath him, squirms and writhes and aches in joy.  _

_ “Take me,” Crowley gasps, unable to stand the burning any longer, unable to form words in the heat.  _

Crowley twitched and arched his back— 

“I’ve just sent Adam to Wendsleydale’s house this evening and— Oh!” 

Crowley’s eyes flew open and he threw the book across the room, rolling away violently from the door and landing on the floor on the side of the bed furthest away from Aziraphale. He lay face down on the mat beside the bed, his hand buried beneath him, his pants loose on his waist, and stared under the bed blindly, his shock and embarrassment too much to handle. It was not the act of pleasuring himself for which he was ashamed, but that his deepest fantasy had been for the angel standing not two meters away. Crowley internally begged him to go away, to leave, to never mention what he’d seen again. 

Instead, mortified, he heard Aziraphale stepping into the room. He heard the sound of a book’s pages being flipped through and then he felt the angel’s presence above him, looming over him while he lay in shame on the floor. 

“Get up, silly,” Aziraphale laughed gently.

Crowley, almost as if directed by an outside force, sat up, still facing away from Aziraphale. 

“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he continued, “you always said you didn’t.” 

“I—I don’t, not usually,” Crowley said, his mouth dry, slowly removing his hand from his front and turning his head slightly, “I just… Was figuring out somethin’ to do.” 

“Hm,” Aziraphale commented lightly from somewhere behind him, “pity you chose a book over me.” 

Before Crowley could fully process what he had heard Aziraphale was gone again, walking through the door to the bedroom and heading down the stairs. He sat on his haunches, confused, licking his lips, his brain incoherently spewing thoughts at random. Had Aziraphale simply been offended he’d resorted to trashy romance novels than ask for his company? This was the most comfortable, cut and dry answer to his increasingly complicated questions. The more titillating answer was that Aziraphale had explicitly stated that he was jealous he’d gone and wanked without inviting him. 

Crowley blinked in the grey light of the growing evening from the window and caught his breath, sliding his feet around and lying on his back on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling and and biting his lip. He felt as though Aziraphale had cut through his thick skin and arrived at the deep place inside of him that he kept hidden; the part of him that loved Aziraphale, that was tender and shy. He remembered being afraid of expressing his beauty when he was an angel, gazing at the shining auras of the archangels and desperately wanting their attention. Humans had not been invented yet, but as he quietly and tenderly hung the stars he now knew what he had felt was a very human experience— The desire to live in truth, to express oneself. That was really how he had become damned. Lucifer has been a bright beacon of unbridled passion who spoke his truth and he was drawn like a moth to flame. 

He finally sat up, shaking out his hair. He needed a bath, a long one, piping hot. And maybe a glass of wine. 

He stood up and stripped naked, catching his reflection in the dresser mirror, and took in his eyes and his hair. He had always had crimson hair— He was as the Almighty had made him, except for his eyes and the brand on the side of his face. Every demon had one, a burning mark that represented what lowly creature they had been condemned to embody. Beelzebub had a fly on the back of their neck, something that Crowley had glimpsed long ago in the breezes of the Sahara desert. Hestur’s was on his hand. 

Angels looked a certain way because God made them, like trial runs of what she thought humans might look like. She, a creator, an artist, sketched the angels, sketched the demons, and then finally sat down to paint her masterpiece. Angels and demons could manipulate their forms but there was a configuration that each felt was  _ right somehow,  _ that they felt was more accurate than other forms. He noticed, when he reported to his superiors, that his form was the most unchanged in Hell. He had unintentionally kept his face as accurate to God’s plan as he could. He didn’t know if this was because he longed to be with her once more or if it was just comfortable. It was probably a mixture of both. 

He padded to the open door, hearing Aziraphale humming to himself in the kitchen along to a scratchy old record, and smiled, darting across the hallway to the bathroom. He filled his tub to the sound of Aziraphale’s loud and enthusiastic rendition of Bach’s  _ Cantata No. 90.  _ Even the angel’s humming was perfect, on key and melodic. Crowley, sitting on the edge of the tub as the hot water splashed into the deep porcelain basin of the old fashioned claw-footed bath, closed his eyes. He swayed to the sound of the music and Aziraphale’s humming. Outside, the world turned dark. Snow began to settle down heavily, flying down from the sky. As Crowley turned to get into the bath, putting a foot into the hot water, there was a slight groaning sound and the power winked out. 

He whistled and chuckled quietly. They were on well water and he’d  _ just  _ got to fill his tub before the power failed. He heard Aziraphale’s record cut out and the angel make a small exclamation of surprise. Crowley, who could see much better in the dark anyways, settled into his bath. 

He heard footsteps on the stairs after a while, the old wood creaking, and Crowley turned his head and saw the glimmer of candlelight from under the door skirting across the polished wooden floorboards. Then he heard a tentative knock. 

“Crowley?” 

“Yeah, in here!” Crowley called, sitting up straighter in the bath. Aziraphale opened the door and peeked around, a candle holder with a lit candle in his hand. Crowley’s heart swelled as he remembered how Aziraphale had looked standing in the Tadfield church, lit from below. He got to see it in person now, without the interference of the Church windows, and this time the angel’s kind blue eyes were trained on him instead of away from him. 

“Oh dear, I’ve done it again…,” Aziraphale tittered, shaking his head, “I can’t seem to stop walking in on you, can I?” 

Crowley’s eyebrows knitted together and he smirked. “You’re not a vampire, I don’t have to invite you in,” he teased. 

Aziraphale laughed softly and Crowley felt his heart beat faster. 

“Well… There isn’t much else to do, would… Well, I have a few bottles of nice wine made here in the village, I could... Er’… Bring them up?” 

Aziraphale was looking everywhere except for Crowley’s eyes and Crowley’s slitted, wide eyes were looking nowhere but at Aziraphale. He swallowed but played it off, waving a hand casually. 

“Well… Alrighty then,” he drawled, in an effort to keep his voice from quaking, “why don’t you go and get that and…  _ Join me.  _ There’s enough room…” 

Aziraphale blinked rapidly and smiled shyly, nodding. “I’ll uh, be right back!” 

The door snapped behind him. Once he was alone, Crowley’s expression fell from being haughty and teasing to panicked. He bit his lip, looking around and trying to understand what he had just gotten himself into. After a few minutes, Aziraphale returned, a bottle of wine and two glasses in his hand, the candle floating ethereally behind him. The angel put the wine bottle under his arm and snapped a finger. Candles, their small flames flickering, flew in behind him like a flock of doves and settled themselves about the room. The entire bathroom was filled with a soft, warm glow and Crowley blinked slowly, taking in Aziraphale’s face. He looked incredible, surrounded by soft candlelight, as though he were made for its beauty. The angel was wearing a bathrobe and seemed a little unsure of himself now that he was here. Crowley smiled at him, really smiled, and pulled up his knees, gesturing to the empty space in the bath. 

Aziraphale set the bottle down near Crowley’s arm and then gently set the two glasses beside it. He flicked his eyes up to Crowley’s face as he bent over, looking anxious, before straightening up. He rested a hand on the tie of the robe for a few moments as though psyching himself up, before he let the robe fall in a rush. Crowley had to blink because his body was still that of an angel’s and they were less reserved about their true forms when they were alone together. As a result, Aziraphale’s naked corporeal form was glowing and soft and beautiful in a way that no human body was. Aziraphale quickly stepped into the tub and sat down, covering himself in the high bubbles and curling his knees to his chest, putting his arms around them. Crowley recalled that the other angels had stripped him of a pair of his wings, the ones that they used to hide their bodies from other angels. The memory passed over Crowley’s mind like a dark cloud and he sighed heavily, looking to the wine sitting on the floor. 

“What is it?” Aziraphale asked self-consciously. 

Crowley snapped his eyes to him and quickly cleared the dark thoughts from his face and his mind. 

“It’s nothing, seriously,” he said with a smile, “don’t worry about it.” 

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “You  _ know  _ I  _ will _ worry about it!” 

“It’s something negative, and… I don’t want to ruin this with my negative thoughts,” Crowley told him truthfully, pulling up the bottle of wine and the two glasses. He handed Aziraphale one. 

“You can’t ruin this with negative thoughts, Crowley,” Aziraphale said gently, taking the glass, “whatever thoughts you have, good or bad… I don’t mind hearing them.” 

Crowley swallowed and looked at the wine bottle. It was a red, from the 1970s, some local small batch. He reached forward and poured Aziraphale a glass before pouring himself one. He put the bottle down beside the bathtub and swirled the red contents of his glass. 

“I was just… You’re so shy about your body, and I was just… Thinking about why,” he explained haltingly, “Its a…” 

He swallowed. “I get why you’re shy but it’s a shame, really. You’re beautiful,” he said in a rush, licking his lips, and flicking his eyes up to Aziraphale, “Your singing… Your human form and your true form, your aura… You’re more beautiful than all the angels.” 

Crowley had never truly blushed in his entire stint on earth. His corporeal form had never cracked under emotional pressure like it was cracking now, fire coming embarrassingly to his cheeks. He felt both betrayed and light headed. He locked eyes with Aziraphale and wished he hadn’t. The angel’s blue eyes were rimmed in tears and he was awash of different emotions, shame and joy mixing turbulently in his face. 

“Oh, Crowley… You’re just saying that,” Aziraphale muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. Crowley saw his wine shaking in its glass. 

“I’m  _ not _ ,” Crowley said forcefully, putting his wine on the windowsill beside him and leaning forward, daring to put his hands on the angel’s warm, bare shoulders. “You’re beautiful. You’re so damn beautiful and I… I…” 

_ I love you.  _

His throat felt full of cotton and he swallowed hard to clear it. He tried many times to speak but fear crept into his heart. 

“I don’t want you to be ashamed,” he finished. They were not the words he had wanted to say, but he was terrified of ruining their tenderness with a foolish confession.  _ I love you I love you I love you I love you,  _ his brain seemed to repeat, an echo of what he wished he’d had the bravery to say. Aziraphale looked down into the soapy bathwater at their closeness, his head down. Something bright and shining seemed to obscure him on the deep planes of existence Crowley could see in the corners of his eyes, and he knew that Aziraphale was unintentionally hiding his gaze with his wings, the way they did to shield their eyes from the glory of god. It was only because Crowley was so close to him, emotionally and physically, that he knew Aziraphale was weeping. A teardrop hit the bathwater and Crowley inhaled sharply, feeling it dilute and mix with the water and prickle his skin with its heat. 

Something cleared in front of him and he could see Aziraphale clearly once more, and he looked up at Crowley with sad blue eyes, his face wet. He put his wine glass to the side, joining its neighbour on the windowsill. Outside, the snow was gently piling up in the garden. Aziraphale lifted his hands from the water and reached forward, closing the distance between them. He put his hands on either side of Crowley’s face. Crowley blinked his serpentine eyes rapidly.    
  
“ _ Thank you _ ,” Aziraphale whispered, moving his thumb across Crowley’s cheeks, his eyes gazing solidly into Crowley’s, “ _ Thank you. _ ”    
  
Crowley knew his hands were trembling but he lifted them and grasped Aziraphale’s wrists gently, leaning his head heavily into Aziraphale’s hands. He swallowed and closed his eyes, the warm bath water rippling gently as Aziraphale moved toward him, their legs intertwining, Aziraphale’s head falling to Crowley’s shoulder and his hands dropping from his face to place them on his back, pulling him close, their bodies fully intertwined. Crowley, his eyes half-closed, put his chin over Aziraphale’s shoulder and clenched his jaw.  _ I don’t deserve him,  _ Crowley thought sadly, gazing at the flickering candles in the room. 

Unbeknownst to Crowley, Aziraphale was thinking the same thing.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> howdy cowpokes and domesticated ferals! 
> 
> i've officially reached the governing majority of what i've written in backlogs, so from now on it's going to switch to a Monday only update schedule as I write to catch up. 
> 
> i'm also supposed to be writing a thesis ??? ??? ?? so that is going to take up a lot of my time. as well as making prints for a con im attending. and also working a lot. 
> 
> relaxation?? i don't know her. 
> 
> anyways, regardless, i'm going to carve out time to write this because it gives me joy and i love to drink beer and avoid responsibilities!!!!!!!!!!!! 
> 
> thanks! ya'll are stars

Anathema Device said goodbye, blowing a kiss to the screen of her iPad, and pressed the red button that would end the FaceTime call with her mother. She had finally made it passed border security and was sitting on a bench inside of Heathrow airport waiting for her ride to arrive. She looked around, taking stock of her luggage, and opened her carry-on bag which contained a three-hundred year old family heirloom and the index cards that constituted the contents of said heirloom. On a whim, she took out the heirloom and regarded it. It was a heavy, ancient book with a worn green cover. Emblazoned on the front in faded gold lettering was its title: _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_. She smiled at it and closed her eyes, opening it to a random page and tapping her finger onto the yellowed paper. It was not often she did this– She knew the entire contents of the book from front-to-back and she didn’t really need to consult the cue cards anymore, only when she needed particular details. She looked down and read aloud under her breath.   
  
3001.  
_Good and Evil guideth the Great Beaft, Principality and Duke each. Betwixt undying yarrow and golden vine, the Boy learneth Temperance._ _  
_ _  
_Anathema cocked her head to the side and adjusted her glasses. This was one of the prophecies her family had had difficulty completely discerning. The Great Beast was obviously the Anti-Christ, but the rest of the prophecy was less clear, particularly the second sentence. As they drew towards the end times, the prophecies became increasingly difficult to parse while also increasing in volume. There were twenty prophecies in total, all calculated to occur within a nine month period. Anathema thumbed quickly through the stack of index cards in her bag and pulled out the corresponding entry to the prophecy she had landed on. Next to the words “Great Beast,” and “the Boy,” the near-illegible quill writing of her great-great-great uncle had written “ _Antichrist._ ” Some time later, a fountain pen circled the words ‘ _Principality’_ and _‘Duke_ ’ and had written “ _Possibly - angel and demon.”_ The rest was blank, except for a red pen which underlined “Temperance” and had placed a question mark.   
  
Anathema’s lips twisted as she thought, looking into the middle distance blindly. According to her (admittedly extensive) Biblical research, humanity’s stint on earth was not a permanent one– Humans were to be judged, sent to heaven or hell, and this event was considered by most theologians to be inevitable. Agnes, on the other hand, hinted otherwise. Her prophecies specifically demanded strange and murky instructions for her personally, in the year of the Lord 2019. While Anathema wasn’t exactly sure if she was going to be able to do anything _about_ Armageddon, she wasn’t about to ignore these instructions in case there was something she _could_ do. She read the prophecy again, repeating it.   
  
“ _Betwixt undying yarrow and golden vine_ ,” she muttered. She had no idea what those things meant. The beginning was clear, however– An angel and a demon had been sent to actively guide the Anti-Christ. This made sense. Heaven and Hell required a final conflict, a final resolution to the question of good and evil, for humans to finally be judged and sides to be split. What didn’t make sense was the bit about _Temperance._ Wasn’t the Anti-Christ being groomed for his starring role? Why would an angel and a demon bother trying to teach him _Temperance_ of all things?   
  
“Miss?”   
  
Anathema jumped and adjusted her glasses, turning around and smiling at a bearded man who had come up to her.   
  
“Sorry, yes?”   
  
“I believe I am your drive, miss…,” he flicked his eyes down, reading her name, “Miss… Uh, Device?”   
  
“Yes! Thank you,” she smiled at him, gathering her luggage and putting the index card back in its box. She zipped its cover closed and put the __Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch into her bag.   
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


The village of Tadfield was gorgeous and picturesque, the weather seeming almost too perfect and time-of-year-appropriate to be believable. Anathema gazed from the car windows and blinked around at the countryside rolling beautifully passed her, everything coated in a picture-perfect dusting of white. When she finally arrived at her destination, she got out and adjusted her glasses, smiling. The cottage she had rented was charming, and she stood for a moment taking in its traditional beauty. She had lived most of her life in extremely modern vistas overlooking the Pacific ocean, and the ancient stones of Jasmine Cottage were a welcome change despite the grim occasion for her arrival. 

She had arranged for her things to be delivered directly after she moved in, and the movers did not disappoint. She had barely put her bag on the table when they pulled up out front. She smiled and patted the bag which held Agnes’ book, thanking her for her foresight. The book had specifically recommended these movers, and as usual, Agnes was a good judge. 

After an hour or two of unpacking and setting up her things, Anathema settled into the kitchen table and laid out the book, the cue cards, her iPad, a few instruments, and a small box of coloured band aids on its polished wooden surface. She sat down with her tea and looked at her arrangement for a moment before letting out a small breath and reaching for the box of index cards. She sifted through until she found the next prophecy which would chronologically follow the previous one she had landed on. She pulled it out, giving it a quick glance to assure she had the correct one.

  
3002\.   
  
_A boy requireth a bandage of aid._

She smiled, and laughed a little. This one was the first one she had figured out herself, as a ten year old. She traced her own childish handwriting circling the words ‘ _bandage of aid’_ in colour pencil where she had written ‘ _BANDAID!!!’_ triumphantly. She looked out her window and blinked. Just past her garden, a group of young children were walking together, bundled in hats and mitts and dragging sleds. One of them looked hunched over, holding his hand. A boy with bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair peeked over the hedge at her cottage, his eyes roving over the lights that were on in the house. She watched as he rounded the snow-covered hedge and came to her gate, peering further into her yard. He didn’t see her.   
  
She stood up and came to the door, opening it and peering out into the sunny winter afternoon. The boy’s eyes lightened and he blinked rapidly, taking her in.   
  
“Um, hello,” he called to her from the gate, “my friend’s cut himself, would you mind gettin’ us a bandaid?”   
  
Anathema smiled widely, gesturing inside the cottage. “Of course! Bring him here.”   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


“He was supposed to back ages ago, Crowley!” Aziraphale fretted, gazing out the front window in search of their young son.    
  
Crowley, sitting at the kitchen table and reading the  _ Tadfield Advertiser _ , ran a forefinger along the horoscopes and crinkled his nose.    
  
“It’s fine, stop worrying,” he drawled, regarding the page, “Oi, you think angels an’ demons got birthdays?”    
  
“We both  _ do not _ have birthdays,” Aziraphale snipped angrily, “there was no  _ time _ before the earth.”    
  
“Oh yeah,” Crowley muttered, furrowing his brow and reading a particular horoscope, “Personally, I think I’m quite an Aries, anyways. Supposed to be pretty fiery and passionate… Actually, maybe  _ you’re _ the Aries.”    
  
“Crowley, I am being  _ serious! _ ”    
  
“Me too! Listen to this:  _ ‘ _ _ New faces will play a large part in your life today and over the weekend, so be ready for anything and especially be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Don’t waste time saying your goodbyes, just hit the road and enjoy yourself. _ ’ Hey, maybe we should take a trip somewhere?”    
  
_ “Crowley! _ ” Aziraphale shouted, his voice apoplectic with anger and distress, his eyes wide and frantic, “ _ Adam was supposed to be home an hour ago!”  _ __   
__   
Crowley raised his hands defensively, laying the  _ Tadfield Advertiser  _ on the table. “Alright, alright! Let’s… Go look for him, then,” he sighed, standing up.    
  
“... And I think that’s why he shouldn’t be that way, ‘cause that’s just stupid,” said Pepper’s voice, muffled through the glass of the kitchen window.   
  
“Yeah, I guess so,” agreed Brian’s voice. Aziraphale ran to the window and looked out, throwing back the white linen curtains. He pulled open the window, the top slamming against the wooden frame.    
  
“Adam Young, where  _ have you been? _ ” Aziraphale yelled out of the window crossly. Crowley stood and joined him at the kitchen window, looking out into the front garden and onto the lane.    
  
Adam jumped and turned around, holding onto his sled. Dog was barking loudly at his heels.    
  
“I’m sorry I’m late!” he called back sheepishly, “Brian hurt himself, we had to get him a bandaid…”    
  
Brian held up his forearm, which was thoroughly bandaged beneath his elbow. “Hi Mister Aziraphale! I feel in the bushes and cut my arm,” he called.    
  
Aziraphale left the window, slamming it shut, and quickly made his way outside. Crowley followed lazily behind, leaning on the doorframe and watching as Aziraphale bustled out into the garden and walked straight up to Adam and his friends.    
  
“Goodness, that’s a big cut!” he exclaimed, looking over Brian’s arm, which was pulled out of the sleeve of his winter coat, “Are you sure you shouldn’t get stitches, dear?”    
  
“It should be fine, the witch in Jasmine Cottage fixed me up,” he said, smiling.    
  
“She isn’t a  _ witch _ , actually!” Wensleydale cut in, rolling his eyes.    
  
“Had a lot of witchy things in her house,” Brian grumbled.    
  
“And I heard she gets a witch’s newspaper,” Pepper interjected matter-of-factly, “So she’s a witch.”    
  
Adam bent down and pat Dog on the head to stop his frantic yapping, looking up at Aziraphale.    
  
“Oh dear, I don’t think she was  _ actually _ a witch,” Aziraphale laughed softly, letting go of Brian’s arm, picturing a new age hippie with a drug rug sweater and a few fancy rocks, “I’m sure she’s just an artist or something.”    
  
“Didn’t seem like an artist, but maybe,” Adam shrugged, “I’ve never met an artist before.”    
  
“They can be a little eccentric,” Aziraphale smiled, laughing and remembering old friends of his. This was, of course, before they had realized lead poisoning led to insanity. Leave it to humans to take the one thing that was horrible for their health and try and make art with it.    
  
“Well, Adam, you aren’t in trouble, of course, but it’s almost dinnertime,” Aziraphale continued, and Adam stood up, taking Dog’s lead and his sled.   
  
He waved goodbye to his friends and they went inside. Crowley had left the conversation halfway through and had begun making something to eat. He wasn’t as good at cooking as Aziraphale was, of course, but he could make simple things. He’d decided on spaghetti and meatballs arbitrarily and was using miracles while nobody was looking to get the food to look and taste at least somewhat palatable. Aziraphale, coming into the kitchen, gave him a small tut as he watched him snap his fingers to get the sauce the right consistency.    
  
“ __ Really, dear… The food never tastes as good as when you make it yourself the right way,” Aziraphale chided, sitting down at the kitchen table. Adam was busy gathering food for Dog’s dish, carrying over the heavy bag and putting it down on the wooden floor.    
  
“I don’t notice any difference,” Crowley said flippantly, flicking his hand and sending the spaghetti flying into three low bowls. He had never eaten much before they had moved to Tadfield, but he’d gotten into the habit by simple virtue of the regular meals they took together three times a day. 

They sat together eating and Adam told them about the supposed ‘witch’ who had moved into Jasmine Cottage. According to Adam, her entire mode of dress and decor was ‘ _ very’  _ witchy. However, seeing as witches who were actually gifted with above average perceptions and abilities were more scarce than they had ever been (Aziraphale suspected that it was because of television), they took Adam’s enthusiastic rendition of the new villager was a grain of salt. 

“Well anyways,” Adam finished, chewing loudly on his last meatball, “Brian asked if I wanted to stay at his house this weekend. His Mum said it was alright, she said I could bring Dog too. We’re gonna watch horror movies.” 

He chewed a bit and then clued in to Aziraphale’s stern expression. 

“Oh—Sorry, um. Can I stay at Brian’s? Please?” 

“Yes,  _ you may, _ ” Aziraphale said pointedly. 

“Your dear old Dad and I are gonna go on a little date, the horoscopes said so,” Crowley drawled, grinning and reaching to pat Aziraphale on the shoulder. 

Aziraphale made a strange noise in his throat and tittered.    
  
“Oh,  _ stop, _ ” Aziraphale muttered, looking up to the ceiling in embarrassment.    
  
Adam seemed unsure how to react. On the one hand, they weren’t  _ really _ his parents, so it wasn’t  _ so  _ gross for them to kiss and do…  _ Other Things _ . Then again, they were now  _ sort of _ his parents, and he found the thought of  _ Other Things  _ generally uncomfortable in the first place. Though he internally thought their obvious gooey glances were gross in a myriad of ways, he decided to play it cool and roll his eyes like he’d seen older kids doing at school. 

“Whatever,” he intoned, as though he didn’t have time for whatever lovey-dovey plans his foster parents had concocted, “Have fun, I guess. It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow, isn’t it?” 

Crowley, who had gotten up to snoop about the counter for the tins where Aziraphale kept the treats, jumped as though he had been electrocuted and nearly dropped the molasses cookie he had found. Aziraphale, sitting at the table sipping his after dinner tea, opened his eyes wide and spun around to look at Crowley, his light eyebrows almost lost in his hair. 

“Oops,” Adam said sarcastically from across the table, smiling in amusement, “sorry, Crowley…” 

“Wha—Yuagh—Tha— Thas’ not why I said that… Didn’t even know what day it was, to be honest, just a coincidence…” 

Crowley was desperately trying to play it off, but it wasn’t going anywhere and Aziraphale snorted slightly and shook his head, simultaneously amused and flattered. 

“ _ Really,  _ dear… You could have just asked.” 

“I  _ did  _ ask,” Crowley grumbled, “I just wanted to get out of Tadfield for a bit… Nothin’ to do with bloody Valentine’s Day… Might I remind you both that I’m a  _ demon? _ We don’t  _ do  _ Valentine’s Day.” 

“But you  _ do  _ do romantic weekend getaways, apparently,” Aziraphale commented lightly, sipping his tea and smirking.

Crowley rolled his serpentine eyes. “Well, just for that, I won’t take you. I’ll go by myself,” he snapped, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter. 

Aziraphale turned and glared at him, offended. “You  _ wouldn’t! _ ” 

“I  _ would _ , and—“ 

“Can you both shut it? Seriously,” Adam interjected, shaking his head, “just go on your stupid Valentine’s Day vacation and stop fightin’ about it.”   
  
Aziraphale clicked his tongue in displeasure, rolling his eyes. “I don’t like your tone, Adam Young,” he said, sniffing.   
  
Adam shrugged. “Sorry,” he mumbled, sounding not sorry at all. Crowley glared at the boy who only raised his eyebrows back at him, and shrugged.   
  
“Do the dishes,” Crowley growled at him, jerking his head to the messy pile of pots and pans he’d created in his attempt to make spaghetti.   
  
Adam, completely unfazed, got up and did as he was told. Crowley sat back down at the kitchen table, moodily eating his cookie and resolutely not looking at Aziraphale. Opposite him, Aziraphale had his nose in the air and was reading the newspaper Crowley had discarded, his lips pursed. Adam snuck a glance at them and shook his head. He was somewhat happy that he was getting away from them for a little while. They had been a little cranky with each other as of late and Adam couldn’t quite understand why. There was a lot of things he didn’t quite understand that had occurred in the last six months and every time he tried to think about it he got the distinct impression that it was something about _him_ , and something _he_ had done. The thought made him uncomfortable and very, very scared, and he usually ended up pushing it to the back of his mind when it came up. Crowley and Aziraphale both seemed tense, like they were waiting for something bad that they knew was going to happen and Adam couldn’t shake the sense that whatever it was, it had to do with him.   
  
Adam finished the dishes and lingered at the sink, his back to Crowley and Aziraphale, lost in thought. He swallowed hard.   
  
“Um,” he began uncertainly, turning around and playing with the edge of his shirt nervously, “Did… Did I do something wrong?”   
  
Crowley stopped glaring at the wall and flicked his serpentine eyes to where Adam was standing at the sink, seemingly caught off guard by his question. Aziraphale turned in his seat, his eyes wide, his mouth softening.   
  
“Oh, oh no! No, dear, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Aziraphale assured him, his eyebrows knitting in concern, “Whatever made you think you did something wrong?”   
  
Adam twisted his lip and shrugged, looking away. “Nothin’... Just… You both seem nervous or angry about somethin’...”   
  
Aziraphale turned in his seat to look at Crowley, who stared back. Adam watched as something passed between them, something they weren’t willing to share with him. Adam clenched his jaw. It _was_ about him.   
  
“We’re just… Bored a bit, that’s all,” Crowley drawled, the expression on his face wiped clean to one of easiness, “We’ve never been cooped up in one place for so long. Thas’ why we’re gonna take a little vacation.” He smirked and looked pointedly at Aziraphale, whose expression had softened. He seemed to give up.   
  
“Yes,” he agreed, tiredly, “We just need a change of scenery, dear.”   
  
Aziraphale took Adam by the shoulders and looked into his eyes kindly.   
  
“I _promise_ it has nothing to do with you,” he assured, “You have done _nothing_ wrong.”   
  
Adam swallowed and nodded. He looked down at the floor for a moment before stepping out of Aziraphale’s grasp.   
  
“Okay, well… Have fun. I’m gonna go get my bag ready for goin’ to Brian’s.”   
  
“Sure,” Crowley said, waving his hand as Adam left the kitchen.   
  
Up in his room Adam paused and stared at his reflection in the small mirror that hung by his door, his expression falling.   
  
There _was_ something wrong, he just knew it. There was something wrong with _him._   
  



	20. Chapter 20

“Just cut across through Swindon!” 

“No, that’ll take an extra half hour _at least_!” 

“Not at this rate, we’re already immobile!” 

“Would _you_ like to drive the bloody car, then? Since you’re so clever with directions?” 

“Just drive us back home if you’re going to be like this, I don’t want to spend one more minute with you!” 

“Oh, stop being a drama queen!” 

“A _drama queen? You—_ YOU were the one who suggested this trip in the first place! _You_ were the one who completely ruined the motorways of England on a stupid demonic whim! And _you_ are the one who has gotten us _stuck within it!”_

Silence reigned in the Bentley for many minutes as they crept along the road, stuck in bumper to bumper traffic as they tried to get onto the M25. 

Crowley’s jaw clenched and unclenched and he wondered why he had even bothered to think of this trip at all. The reality was that he hadn’t actually _planned_ anything— He had been hoping to drive until they found somewhere very nice and very calm, with a different view than what they had been staring at for the past six months. He felt like a rat in a cage, the ever impending doom that was their bosses staring down at them and never letting on when it was going to be their turn to die. He looked at Aziraphale and was taken aback. 

The angel beside him was looking straight forward, looking miserable. He was crying a little, tears flicking down his cheeks. 

Crowley felt himself melt and his anger dissipate. They weren’t angry at each other— Not really. They were both simply terrified. 

“You okay?” he asked, his voice low and gentle, reaching out to put a hand on the angel’s knee, “I’m sorry. I dunno who started it but I’m sorry it got started at all.” 

Aziraphale sniffed and wiped his eyes. 

“I’m sorry too,” Aziraphale muttered thickly, blinking rapidly, “I just feel… I… I don’t know. I can’t describe it.” 

Crowley let out a sigh and leaned back into the Bentley’s leather seating. Around them, the noise of the traffic was a cacophony. He rubbed his temples and chewed on his lip. 

“I feel like… I feel as though we’re on borrowed time, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, looking over at him with wide, shining eyes. 

Crowley swallowed and drummed his hands on the steering wheel. The words Aziraphale had spoken cut deep. He was right. They _were_ on borrowed time. 

“I never thought… I jus’... I didn’t want the world to end, and I didn’t think…,” Crowley swallowed and tried again, “if Adam doesn’t destroy the world… They’ll still know it was _us_. I wasn’t thinking right when I… I don’t know. It was stupid of me to suggest it, I dunno why I even bothered…” 

“You did what you thought was right,” Aziraphale sniffed sadly, wiping his eyes, “and I agreed because I trust you and know you were trying to do what was right.” 

They were silent for many minutes. 

“I won’t fight, if there’s a war,” Aziraphale said firmly, after a while, “I refuse. I don’t believe in it.” 

Crowley blinked in surprise and turned to look at him. “Y-you won’t?” 

“No,” Aziraphale said assuredly, swallowing, “fighting in the war would mean… Well, it would mean fighting _you,_ Crowley, and I refuse to do that.” 

Crowley was touched. Though he loved Aziraphale deeply, he always had doubt in his heart as to whether the angel would be willing to disobey heaven for him the way that he was willing to disobey Hell for Aziraphale. 

“I was thinking… if it all, well… Mucks up… We could run away together, maybe… Alpha Centauri or somethin’... Nobody’d notice us there… It’s beautiful, I… ,” Crowley swallowed hard, “I helped build it. Back… Back in the day.”

Aziraphale blinked slowly, his eyes tender. Crowley didn’t often speak of his time as a an angel, let alone what he had helped to create. Each angel had had a hand in creating the universe, a special something they had added to the fabric of the world. He swallowed and decided not to comment on Crowley’s desperate plea—He knew that they both knew they would be found, eventually, they would either have to fight or be destroyed. Instead, he closed his eyes for a moment and pictured Crowley among the galaxies, hanging the stars like little light fixtures in the darkness of the void. 

“What did you help make?” Crowley asked him, his voice low and cautious. He knew that it was a faux pas for angels to speak of the time before the Fall. The remembrance of their closeness was too much for most to bear— Even for demons, deep down.

“I— I don’t really remember,” Aziraphale muttered distractedly, looking out the window and rubbing his head, “I don’t— I have a hard time remembering things from… From before.” 

Crowley flicked his eyes over and had the distinct impression he wasn’t telling the truth. Knowing it was a painful topic, he let it slide. They managed to get through a spot of traffic and were cruising along a bit of motorway when he finally looked back over to Aziraphale, who had gone eerily still. 

“Aziraphale,” he said quietly, trying to get the angel’s attention. He didn’t respond. Crowley noted with concern that he was crying silently, his mouth open, his eyes fogged over.

“Aziraphale?” he repeated gently, reaching out to put a tentative hand on the angel’s shoulder.

“I— I… I was in love with another angel,” Aziraphale whispered lowly, his voice cracking with emotion, “I don’t remember who— They fell, I can’t see their face… I can’t remember… I—I…. Then they took my wings and I— I can’t… I can’t…”

Crowley, wide eyed, pulled off the road quickly. Cars swerved to avoid him, honking angrily, but he didn’t care. He slammed the Bentley into park and turned fully in the seat to look at Aziraphale, throwing his sunglasses up onto his head. 

“Angel?” he asked quietly, reaching out and putting a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder, “Aziraphale?” 

He had seen this look before, the wide eyed stillness, the deep immobilizing terror. He saw it every time he reported Downstairs in the eyes of the newly arrived spirits, the realization that damnation was real and that it was happening to _them._ The knowledge that what they did in the world had consequences and that somebody had judged them on hidden and unknowable criteria. Aziraphale tried to speak many times, opening and closing his mouth, and making no sound. He was somewhere Crowley couldn’t reach, somewhere lost in the eternity before time had been invented. 

“Hey,” he felt himself whisper, taking Aziraphale’s face with his hand and turning his head gently, “hey now. You’re alright.” 

He swallowed. 

“Remember that restaurant, the little one in Nice? They made mille feuille? And you said it was the best you ever had?” 

Aziraphale swallowed and tears flicked down his face. 

“Yes,” he whispered. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Crowley nodded, encouraged, “with the chocolate mousse? And we had that wine later on, remember? The horrible wine? It tasted like.. like…” 

“Sewage,” Aziraphale supplied thickly, his eyes becoming less glassy than before. 

Crowley laughed and nodded, “Exactly like that.”

Aziraphale finally blinked and looked around, as though he had to remember where he was. His eyelashes fluttered and he looked into Crowley’s face. 

“Why… Why don’t we go somewhere a little warmer?” 

Crowley blinked. “Oh? Like where?” 

“Nice,” Aziraphale suggested, with a tiny smile. 

Crowley regarded him for a moment before nodding, his face matching the expression of the angel across from him. 

“Yeh… Yeh alright.”   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  


The Bentley was safely stored in the underground parking beneath Crowley’s flat in London that was always suspiciously empty despite the ridiculous wealth of the tenants who lived above. Rising from beneath the depths of the parkade into the sunny February afternoon, Crowley blinked behind his sunglasses and turned to Aziraphale who stood beside him on the walk. 

“You ready?“ 

Aziraphale looked at him and nodded slowly, though he appeared to be quite nervous. 

“Yes... Alright.” 

Crowley held out his hand, and Aziraphale took it, swallowing hard and gripping it harder than necessary. 

They both closed their eyes and concentrated. When they felt brave enough to open them again, they were standing at the edge of a rocky beach. Crowley blinked, still holding Aziraphale’s hand tightly, and smiled. It was evening, and February, so the beach was mostly deserted. In the distance, Crowley could see the line of restaurants and boutiques that dotted the road along the shoreline. It was relatively warm here, at least in comparison to the cold and snow of Tadfield. Beside them, the ocean heaved and sighed against the rocks, the water caressing them gently. He heard Aziraphale let out a small breath, as if in relief.

“It… It worked, Crowley,” he whispered, his expression lightening and a smile growing slowly on his face, “I didn’t think… I just figured, a demon and an angel, we couldn’t…” 

“That’ll come in handy,” Crowley smirked, shaking his head. 

What they had done exactly was perform a minor miracle— Disappearing in one place and re-appearing in another; an extremely useful sort of miracle which technically counted as a frivolous one, but could be used in a pinch. Much in the same way that their bodies could not _actually_ disappear physically while they were still bound to them, what Aziraphale and Crowley had done was travel, in tandem, across the physical world by using each other as a sounding board. This sort of maneuver had never been attempted in the six thousand plus years since the Fall, because there hadn’t been any physically bound demons and angels who trusted each other enough to try it. Aziraphale and Crowley, as with many things, were the first.

Crowley looked around the sunny and largely deserted beach and smirked a wide, pleased smile. Something deep inside of him was incredibly charmed that his plan had worked— That they had actually been able to perform a minor miracle _together._ He stepped forward, gently tugging Aziraphale along, who seemed lost in a reverie. The angel blinked and hurried to join him, walking beside him and looking up toward the seaside street whose bright boutiques and shops winked back at him. Crowley was _also_ immensely pleased that Aziraphale hadn’t tried to pull his hand away, seemingly content with walking alongside him with their fingers intertwined. 

They walked in silence along the beach for a while, enjoying the warmth and the sound of the ocean and the music filtering down to them from the street. 

“I do believe I’m ready for that Mille-feuille,” Aziraphale said promptly, after a while, stopping and turning to give Crowley a smile, his eyes glinting mischievously. 

“Oh, really?” Crowley drawled back at him, smirking. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale sniffed, a small, scrumptious smile shining brightly on his face, “all this _waiting_ and tense energy… Well, I’ve just had enough of it. I want _Mille-feuille_ and I was a _good_ wine this time, one that doesn’t taste of _sewage_.” 

“Well then…,” said Crowley, letting go of Aziraphale’s hand and offering his arm in a most gentlemanly manner, affecting a very proper turn of phrase, “I believe a table for two has just opened up at that devilish little restaurant we have been talking about... Care to join me?” 

Aziraphale smirked at him, seeming to vibrate with happiness, and wove his arm through Crowley’s.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
  
The light was dim, and Crowley was drunk on wine and excellent food and the way that Aziraphale kept looking at _him_ with the same covetous and insatiable anticipation that he gave the mille-feuille that he had been so avidly craving. Crowley, sipping his Sauternes and cascading the sweetness about his tongue, watched with unblinking intensity as Aziraphale took the small silver fork and took a minuscule piece of his dessert, rounding it and holding it to his mouth. His blue eyes found Crowley’s behind his sunglasses and stared at him, opening his mouth and taking a bite. Crowley shifted slightly in his seat, not breaking eye contact as the angel across from him went through a journey of delight as he chewed his mille-feuille. 

Crowley swallowed, his mouth dry, and hid behind another sip of his wine. 

He would never admit it out loud, but watching Aziraphale eat had always been something he enjoyed perhaps a little too much. He couldn’t help it— He was a creature drawn to temptations, and Aziraphale’s slip of the tongue in offering him oysters back in Rome had set off a chain of events which culminated in his avid attention as Aziraphale slowly and methodically ate an extremely expensive and expertly crafted mille-feuille. Food was one of the few things that Aziraphale allowed himself to fully enjoy, in a hedonistic and lustful way where all of his other earthly interests (even including books) were kept in check. When they took meals together Crowley, ever the tempter, was often the tempt _ed._

Aziraphale let out a sigh that wouldn’t be out of place in a bedroom situation and wiped his mouth primly, taking up his own wine and having a small sip. 

“This is _delightful,_ ” the angel sighed, and Crowley smirked even through his intense concentration because the light near their table in the restaurant seemed to brighten and dim as the angel sighed and hummed. He had never brought it to Aziraphale’s attention, but lightbulbs and flames seemed to smoulder or brighten around him if he was in a particularly strong mood, positive or negative. Crowley found it fascinating and didn’t mention it for fear of Aziraphale checking himself and preventing it from happening. He _wanted_ to see the lights blaze— He _craved_ it. 

“I’m glad you’re enjoyin’ it,” Crowley muttered, sipping his wine again. 

Eventually, Aziraphale finished the dessert and put his fork to the side, polishing off his wine and letting out a big breath of relief and happiness. Crowley finally blinked.

The waiter came around and took their plates away, and Aziraphale tipped him generously for his service and for the meal. Crowley bit his lip, watching Aziraphale enthuse to the young waiter in french, and put a hand into the pocket of his pants. He traced his fingers along the embossed vines of the golden band that sat there, and wondered if this was the right time. Alone again, Aziraphale looked out across the restaurant for a moment, smiling a pleased smile, before his eyes alighted on him once more. He tilted his blonde head to the side ever so slightly and his eyes flooded with warmth as he gazed at the demon across from him. 

Crowley felt as though he were going to die, his body on fire, his heart hammering in his chest. He swallowed hard and made up his mind. 

“I have a… A gift for you,” he began, his corporeal form seeming to go through shockwaves of adrenaline. 

Aziraphale blinked and smiled, amused, leaning forward and folding his hands on the table. 

“Really? What sort of gift?” 

“Just… Just a little somethin’,” Crowley muttered, swallowing hard, his voice constricted, “sort of.. Silly, really… Kind of dumb…” 

Aziraphale gazed at him and quirked a brow, the grin never leaving his face. 

“Oh?” 

“Y-yeah.” 

Crowley saw the candlelight on Aziraphale’s lips and his mind unravelled. He couldn’t— Not yet… He didn’t know for sure… He couldn’t be certain— 

He felt an incredible, warm sensation on his lips and it took his brain several seconds to catch up and realize that Aziraphale had leaned forward and was kissing him. 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a little baby update because i couldn't help myself lmao

“What was the gift you wanted to give me, anyways?” Aziraphale asked eventually, holding Crowley’s hand and leading him along the quay. Sailboats, docked for the evening, bobbed gently in the currents. Above them the sky was clear and the moon was waxing toward full, playing on the dark surface of the water. 

Crowley blinked and looked at him. 

“We— You— You kissed me,” Crowley stated dumbly. 

Aziraphale blinked in bemusement and shook his head. “That was almost half an hour ago!” 

“Wehh… Yuhh… I— I guess so.” 

Crowley, thinking back on the half hour that Aziraphale claimed had passed since their lips had met in the restaurant and tried to bring forth memories, but there were none there. His mind was a blank slate, a half hour interval of nothingness missing from his brain where he assumed he had died temporarily and was only now coming back to life. 

“Did you  _ really  _ not hear a word of my story about the ducks in St. James’ Park?” 

“N-No. Yeah. Ducks. Bread. I was listenin’.” 

Aziraphale blinked at him and a small mischievous smile broke out across his face. He stopped walking and laughed, a full belly affair which ended with Crowley scowling at him with his arms crossed. 

“I told no such story, my dear,” Aziraphale giggled, “I… I just wanted to see if you were  _ really _ listening.” 

“Well. I wasn’t. Obviously. So,” Crowley sniffed, embarrassed, but still too high on Aziraphale’s kiss to be too angry about it. 

Aziraphale leaned in and gently took his hand again, intertwining their fingers, and looked up into Crowley’s face. 

“I’m sorry if… If it was out of the blue…The… The  _ kiss _ ,” Aziraphale said, his voice seeming to lilt in joy and nervousness when he said the fateful word, “I was just so happy and at peace and I wanted… Well. I just suppose I just…  _ Wanted. _ ” 

Crowley blinked, his lips parted, and was thrilled and annoyed and flabbergasted that Aziraphale had beat him to the punch. He had often dreamed of being the one to sweep Aziraphale off his feet, but it seemed Aziraphale was determined to do some of the sweeping himself. 

His silence must have been longer than he thought, as Aziraphale now looked a bit nervous, holding his hands, doubt flitting across his countenance like a cloud passing over a sunny field. 

“I’m sorry if I— If I overstepped, I didn’t mean—“ 

Crowley dove forward and kissed him, this time wrangling his mind into consciousness and devoting every fibre of himself into experiencing and memorizing the feeling of the kiss, imprinting it permanently deep within himself to bring forward and marvel at in moments of loneliness or fear. In his heart he knew that a kiss was just a kiss, that both he and Aziraphale had displayed intricate rituals of subtle physical affection over the thousands of years they had known one another, but this time it was  _ different  _ somehow. He felt these kisses were seals of dedication, of truth— Of acknowledging, finally, that they really  _ were _ on their own side. They were tender and sweet and innocent somehow… But to the angel and the demon wrapping their arms around one another on the deserted pier near the ocean, these small chaste kisses were  _ everything.  _

Aziraphale pulled away first, gently, and Crowley felt he may completely combust and turn to nothingness at his tender gaze. Aziraphale’s blue eyes were shining with what could only be tears of joy, and he had brought his plump, perfect hands to either side of Crowley’s thin face. Carefully, kindly, he took one of these hands and slid Crowley’s sunglasses onto his head. Crowley felt a jolt of fear— Would Aziraphale realize what he had done, when he looked into his eyes and saw only the slitted, damned pupils of the beast which had tempted Eve? 

Aziraphale’s hand fell back to the side of his face and he stared deep into Crowley’s uncovered eyes, shining and green, whose slitted pupils widened in fear and anticipation. Crowley’s heart hammered in his chest and he waited for the doubt to cross Aziraphale’s mind, the floorboards of the gallows to swing forward and for him to choke on his foolishness for falling in love with an angel. 

It never came. Instead, Aziraphale blinked long and slow and continued to regard his face with nothing but softness. 

“I thought you were so beautiful, when we met to see Noah’s ark being built,” Aziraphale whispered, moving a small lock of Crowley’s red hair from where it hung in his face, “you were bright and joyful and full of the sun in a way I hadn’t been able to be for a long time… And at Christ’s crucifixion… Your hair? And your abaya? You were grieving with the other women and I wanted to grieve with you so badly…” 

Crowley swallowed hard, willing himself not to weep, praying (though he wasn’t supposed to) that he would not weep. 

“Your eyes have meant nothing to me but love and tenderness, all these thousands of years… And I am so… So sorry it took me so long for mine to say the same to you.” 

Crowley wept. He could not stop the stream of tears that cascaded down his pale face, because even he could not look into his own eyes without hating them, without seeing evil and foolishness and hardship. Where Crowley only saw betrayal, Aziraphale saw  _ love _ . 

“If you must know, it was your eyes that did it,” Aziraphale whispered breathlessly, leaning in close, a tiny smile breaking out across the heavens of his face, “that made me… That… When you were so amazed that I had given my sword away. I hadn’t seen a demon, ever before, in my entire existence, and you… You were there…”    
  
Crowley could tell Aziraphale was rambling, his voice becoming thicker and thicker as he spoke, overwhelmed with emotions he had wanted to put into words for so long. Now that he could, he didn’t know how to say it. Crowley, for his part, could only stare into Aziraphale’s watery blue eyes and weep, his throat completely constricted, unable to form any words aside from small noises of happiness and desperation.    
  
“Oh dear,” Aziraphale sniffed, moving one of his hands away and wiping his eyes, “here I go, I can’t even… I don’t even know what to say to you, Crowley.”    
  
“Say you love me.”    
  
Aziraphale’s spine straightened and his eyes widened, his entire being coming to attention at the words that passed thickly through Crowley’s tongue. Internally, Crowley was collapsing. It was all well and good to kiss and to touch his collar, but he realized in that moment that he needed  _ more _ – He needed  _ confirmation _ , the spoken agreement, the word of truth. Aziraphale looked at him as though startled, and the darkness that had grown long at the back of Crowley’s heart reared its head and slithered forward, sure in its conviction that all was rot, that all would come crashing down on his head, fool that he was.    
  
“Oh, oh my, Crowley… It never even occurred to me–”    
  
Crowley closed his eyes and felt sick. He turned violently away from Aziraphale’s love because he could not bear to betrayed twice. Once had been enough.    
  
“Crowley! What– Stop! Come here!”    
  
He did pause. The panic and desperation in Aziraphale’s voice was familiar to him, because he had wanted to yell those same words for centuries watching Aziraphale’s retreating back after they had had some foolish argument. 

_ Don’t leave me _ , the voice screamed,  _ don’t leave me alone.  _

He didn’t turn, but he listened.

“I’m so sorry— I— You know how I am!” Aziraphale tittered, frustration at himself entering his voice, “I’m so…  _ Damn _ … Nervous and—and I can never say what’s on my…. _ Stupid mind…. _ And you deserve so much more and—“ 

Crowley felt himself melting. 

“Just get to it, angel,” he said, his voice not unkind. 

Aziraphale practically ran up to him, spinning him around and taking him by the shoulders forcefully. Crowley was impressed with his boldness. When he could finally wrangle up the courage to meet Aziraphale’s eyes, they were fiery and determined. 

“ _ Maybe  _ you’re  _ the Aries, _ ”  _ he had teased.  _

“Crowley,” Aziraphale stated, his voice level and calm, “I  _ love you. I love you  _ so much. I have loved you for thousands of years, even if I myself didn’t realize it yet… I would do  _ anything  _ to protect you, anything to keep you safe. I would  _ die  _ for you. And if this all goes…  _ pear shaped…”  _ he said forcefully, echoing Crowley’s request for holy water hundreds of years ago, “I  _ will _ die to keep you safe.” 

Something deep inside Crowley knew the words Aziraphale spoke were true, but he felt as though he was dreaming. He heard the tremors of fear echoing in Aziraphale's voice, still fearful of the forces which had kept him closed off from Crowley for so long– But this time, the angel had the bravery to plough on, speaking what he felt, acknowledging what had been there since the beginning. 

“I— I realize that you  _ need _ to hear those words, that you can’t sense  _ love  _ the way an angel can… I could sense your love all this time, and I never realized, not once, that you would not be able to do the same… I have been cruel to you… And a fool… and I hope you can find it somewhere in your gracious, beautiful heart to forgive me.” 

It was too much. Crowley could barely stand. He felt himself slipping, lights popping and his essence flying at random between his corporeal form and his demonic one, bits of grey smog forming at his heels and his wings suddenly popping out, as though he were a doll with a button on the back that Aziraphale had pushed. One of his wings flicked Aziraphale unintentionally in the face and got tangled up with one of his white ones, which had apparently opened and spread at one point without either of them noticing. The street lamps along the quay were brightening to a fever pitch and whining with the amount of electricity coursing through them. Crowley knew they were about to explode. 

“I— I love—,” Crowley couldn’t speak, and his wing was caught up in an angel’s and his arms were clutching Aziraphale like he were a lifeline and the angel had stepped forward and placed a deep kiss onto Crowley’s stuttering lips and he fell, boneless, onto the wharf and Aziraphale tumbled after him. Beside them, the street lamps exploded and glass rained down on them. One by one, all of the lights across Nice glowed impossibly bright and then winked out.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was edited very quickly so bear with me if there's some mistakes etc. lmao

_ They were  _ one. 

They were two opposing forces braiding together along the same consciousness, thoughts sparking and sizzling and fading into deep memory.

Crowley was vaguely aware he was on top of— Himself? That was wrong. He shook his head. Aziraphale felt his hands moving along the frame of his light camel hair coat— But these were Crowley’s hands. They were pinned together on the wharf, seeing with four eyes and two molten spirits and covering themselves with four indistinguishable wings. Aziraphale felt the sensation of sulphur burning his wings black and Crowley heard celestial harmonies that had not heard since his fall. Wordlessly, forming together into a creature with one mind, they  _ understood _ . 

Crowley’s feeling that he should ask Aziraphale permission to take him elsewhere somehow shined above the chaos, but he did not need to open his mouth to say the words. Aziraphale felt it at the same time that he did, and Crowley knew with conviction exactly what he wanted. 

They lifted themselves and stood, pulling away from the kiss, siphoning their substances back into their separate forms. Crowley felt as though he had a severe sunburn, his skin flaming hot and his mind half filled with thoughts that weren’t his own. Aziraphale was trembling and licking his lips in a way that Crowley had dreamed of privately in the deepest places of his mind. Both of their eyes were foggy with fancies they had imagined over the centuries, flicking through the Rolodex of each other’s thoughts. 

Crowley didn’t need to flirt, or to speak— they instantly knew where they were going. Everything in the dark city looked unreal, like cardboard backgrounds to the inner thoughts that fell onto one another’s minds like raindrops on a lake. 

“ _ Where is the sword I gave to you, Aziraphale, to guard the gates of Eden?”  _

Crowley saw God through the feather tips of Aziraphale’s wings as he lied directly to Her about what he had done. Aziraphale, snapping his finger, illuminated the lights in the old hotel they had both wordlessly agreed upon. The front desk manager, who has been complaining about the power outage and smoking, got to his feet as though he had been commanded to do so, his face clearing and staring at them with attentiveness. Aziraphale gave him one glance and the man wordlessly handed them a key. Crowley knew what had happened wasn’t natural, but he did not care. 

The room they had been given was, by design, the same room they had rented together in the late 1960s— Just before Aziraphale had given in and delivered holy water to Crowley. They had both been instructed to help and hinder the youth protests breaking out across Europe, and both had summarily agreed that it was far too large of a movement for their actions to be noteworthy in any way. Instead, they had sauntered off to Nice and had spent a memorably pleasant weekend drinking and eating. 

The door of the room opened without either of them touching it. 

Crowley stumbled inside and still was not fully sure on whose feet he operated. He felt ethereal. He knew Aziraphale felt the same, because his mind was, somehow, also  _ his.  _ In a confused dizzy, they fell sideways onto the thin sheets of the ancient hotel bed and tried to separate their essences long enough to speak. They both opened their mouths several times but no sound would come out, because their thoughts seemed to vanish and appear in each other’s minds. They lay for a long while, speaking in emotion and deep desires that flooded and coloured their minds the moment they appeared upon their consciousnesses. 

Crowley did not feel particularly beholden to his physical form as they shared their thoughts freely, but he knew he had undressed and was in the process of undressing Aziraphale. He felt their bodies touch, skin on skin, and it was a pleasant, distant sensation that accompanied the outpouring of love and devotion that permeated their shared mind. Crowley, in a flash of reality where his body became his own once more, saw himself naked above Aziraphale’s writhing form before he was lost in the blank euphoria of sharing a soul with the only being in all of God’s creation that fully understood who he was. 

For the first time since the Fall, they weren’t __alone.  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
Crowley opened his eyes and smiled. The sun was streaming pleasantly across the bed and he luxuriated in its heat, his tangled red hair splayed across the white pillows. He smelt cigarettes clinging to the linens in the room, and recalled that he had smoked one in this very room not fifty years ago, sitting on the wide ledge and looking out over the city. The decor had not changed much since then. The hotel itself had never been a particularly fancy establishment, but judging from the unchanged interior decor, it had certainly not increased in reputation. It was shabby— But comfortable, like an old friend. 

He was alone in the room but for the first time, since before time had even been invented and he had known himself to be a living being sprung from God’s creativity, he did not feel  _ lonely.  _ He closed his eyes and breathed in the gentle salt-tinged breeze that made its way through the window, which had been opened a little. Cigarettes and wine stains and salt ocean breezes: this was the substance of Crowley’s love. Uncouth and truthful… And he felt the urge to weep knowing that Aziraphale had seen him in this most diluted, simple, desperate form, and had nevertheless embraced him reverently. 

Crowley closed his eyes hazily and searched deep into the depths of his mind for Aziraphale’s presence, and found him there like a street light illuminating the dark pathways of his thoughts. He felt more complex somehow, more enriched, as though he had been missing a key component to his identity which had been suddenly revealed. He let his mind wander toward the light and knew, somehow, that Aziraphale was down the street at a bakery. He could swear that he could smell the fresh bread, the dark tones of chocolate, the tang of fruit preserves. 

He could always see Aziraphale before— He was a constant shining blip on the radar of his senses, but now he could  _ feel  _ him. Idly, he let a smile take over his face. He wondered if Aziraphale could feel him too? 

A tiny glow in his heart that pulsated and shined assured him that he could. 

An indeterminate amount of time passed and Crowley heard Aziraphale enter the room, bringing with him a strong smell of baking and a heady hint of coffee. Crowley forced himself to open his eyes and look over at him, now a little embarrassed that he had shown himself so baldly. Aziraphale closed the door behind him, his blonde curls sticking up in unruly ways, before turning and moving his blue eyes to stare directly into Crowley’s face. 

Crowley couldn’t blink, but he didn’t want to anyways. His insecurities fumbled and floundered and eventually drowned in the ocean of Aziraphale’s eyes. 

“That was real… Wasn’t it?” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathed, enraptured. 

“She didn’t punish us,” Crowley commented, his eyes wide. Aziraphale knew who he was talking about. 

“No,” he murmured, a tiny smile growing out of control like a garden of wildflowers on his face, “She didn’t.” 

Aziraphale finally looked away, and made himself busy, pulling out a small circular wooden table and placing it in front of the window. He picked up two old wooden chairs and placed them across from one another, tucking them beneath the table. He then set out arranging a breakfast platter for them both, putting out a small assortment of tarts and bread and other delights, artfully using the paper bags they had come in as plates and holders. Crowley watched him and silently sent thanks to the heavens and wondered why She had bothered to damn him in the first place if she was going to turn around and allow him heaven on earth a while later. 

“ _ Makes you wonder what God’s really planning,” Crowley had commented teasingly upon the Eastern Gate of Eden.  _

_ “Best not to speculate,” Aziraphale had responded, distressed, wringing his hands.  _

“What if She planned it all like this? From the beginning?” 

Aziraphale turned to look at him, and instead of looking scandalized, like he expected, he only looked amused. 

“Sounds like Her,” he said lightly, humour in his eyes, “Can I tempt you to a bit of breakfast, dear?” 

Crowley smirked, and gathered the sheets about his body, coming to perch on one of the wooden chairs. He wasn’t ashamed of his body— But he liked the ostentatiousness of eating a freshly gathered plate of food in nothing but linens from the bed. It tickled a part of him that liked to indulge. Across from him, dressed in his favourite clothes and looking radiant, Aziraphale settled himself and looked over the meal he had brought, closing his eyes and inhaling the delicious aromas in front of him. Delicately, he took a piece of bread and spread a small amount of butter on it. The butter melted into the softness and he took a bite, smiling. Crowley, watching him, salivated and thought he tasted the gentle sweetness and sapidity of the butter on his own tongue. 

He looked down at the table and noticed there was a small jar of red preserve, what he assumed was a strawberry jam from its aspect, and pulled it toward him. He opened the jar with a flick of his wrist, the seal popping, and was met with a sickly sweet smell. With complete abandon and joy, he dove his long pale fingers into the preserve and scooped out a taste, popping his fingers into his mouth and smiling, knowing full well that his chin was now stained red and that his fingers would need a washing. He didn’t care. He had been living long in the shadow of suffering and self-loathing that Lucifer had cast, and for a moment he was going to allow himself to cultivate joy. 

Aziraphale watched him in shock before laughing loudly in amusement, covering his mouth politely to stop the bread he had been chewing from leaving its place on his tongue. He managed to swallow and shook his head, his nose wrinkling in glee. 

“I… Oh, my dear,” he tutted jokingly after a while. 

“It’s good jam,” Crowley managed through the stickiness. 

Outside the window, a man with the electric was shaking his head in confusion at the lights which had mysteriously gone dark the night before and had miraculously come back on with the morning sun. He was baffled, but, he figured, it was likely someone else’s fault, so he wasn’t too worried. Above the street, the angel and demon who had unintentionally caused this service disruption had run out of things to eat. 

Nervous energy permeated their closeness for the first time since they had first kissed, for it was time to consider reality and the daunting task which awaited them back in Tadfield. They both felt guilty that they had not called Adam or, even worse, had not even  _ thought  _ about him since they left London. Aziraphale, in a small fit of unbearable guilt, leapt up and took Crowley’s phone from the pocket of his jacket, dialling the number for Brian’s house. 

A brief conversation occurred and he hung up, sighing. 

“What’s the little devil up to?” Crowley asked, masking his guilt with sarcasm. 

“Oh, he’s fine… He seemed a bit distant, though.” 

“He  _ was  _ distant, he’s in England,” Crowley commented, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, not  _ physical  _ distance, Crowley, you know that,” Aziraphale sniped, pursing his lips, “Emotionally, I mean. He seemed different.” 

Crowley swallowed. 

“Maybe it’s us that’s different,” he said slowly. 

Aziraphale wrung his hands and knew in his heart it was both.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey ya'll sorry for the late update, my mum had surgery today so i was helping her out. enjoy!

Anathema stood under the full moon, knee deep in snow and holding a pendulum, which currently was hanging completely still beneath her hand. She swore, very loudly. 

A wispy bit of cloud scuttled across the clear night sky and completely ignored her. The moon stared back dispassionately, stretching its eerie silver light across the bare branches of the clearing in the woods she was standing in. It was bitter cold, a frigid breeze wandering through the creaking trees and latching onto her fingertips and cheeks like a belligerent dog. Her arms fell to her sides, the pendulum swinging sadly at her knee. 

“He _has_ to be here _somewhere_ …,” she muttered angrily. 

Truth be told, Tadfield was nothing like what she had expected. Agnes had directed her _to_ this place, but nowhere in her prophecies did she describe the village in any great detail. Anathema had been half expecting a populace which held dark secrets, a cursed house that folks only talked about in hushed corners, horrible family legacies of murder and mayhem… That sort of thing. 

So far, she hadn’t found _anything._ In fact, the weather in Tadfield seemed somehow just a bit nicer than everywhere else in England and the people a little bit calmer. She personally had a theory that this was because they were being manipulated to feel and act this way by some strong otherworldly force— Much in the same way the citizens of Sunnydale had had a certain laissez-faire attitude to the ridiculous amount of death and destruction in _Buffy the Vampire Slayer._ She blinked and angrily looked about her. Stopping the forces of evil and saving the world had looked so much easier on TV when she was younger. Now that it was her turn, for real, she was finding it to be rather aggravating work. 

Anathema sighed, and re-adjusted. She too was a prophecy girl, and the Anti-Christ was her Hellmouth. She would figure this out if it was the last thing she did. She lifted her pendulum up once more, doing a few mental calculations and spinning around to follow the minuscule movements of the stone. 

Suddenly the stone surged forward, as though it had been grabbed by an invisible hand. Anathema was almost pulled off balance with the force of the tug, and she quickly held onto the ancient rope with both hands, steadying herself. Just as suddenly as it had been pulled, the stone fell and the rope holding it went lax. Anathema blinked rapidly behind her large glasses in the direction it had pointed and calculated that it had gestured toward the heart of the village. _This could be it!_

She haphazardly gathered her things, tucking _The Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_ under her arm and surged forward, running through the drifts in the clearing, her long wool skirt covered in snow. She held the pendulum by her side, hoping that it would tug her forward again. She managed to make it out of the woods and found herself on a back road which was poorly lit and poorly ploughed. She stopped on the icy surface for a moment, looking around her. She had the strangest sense that she was being watched. The strong moonlight had a hard time making its way through the thick forest overhead and she squinted, turning her head to the side, listening. 

She heard the quiet cracking of branches, as though something was making its way through the underbrush. She panted quietly, her breath steaming in the frozen air, a small bead of cold sweat running down her back. She felt eyes burning into her spine, and spun around. 

A pair of brilliant white headlights shone at her and she knew no more.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ  
  
  


“You hit someone!”   
  
“They were standing in the middle of the bloody road! They knew the risks!”   
  
Aziraphale gave Crowley a withering look and scrambled out of the Bentley, running to the side slope where he thought he had seen the body of the person they had hit go flying. Crowley got out at a much more leisurely pace, watching as Aziraphale knelt down into the ditch and inspected the prone form of the human that he had accidentally trampled with his car. He winced as Aziraphale snapped his fingers to create an ethereal light that floated above them. Beneath the light on the ground, the person groaned. 

Crowley circled the Bentley and snapped his fingers, the front grille snapping back into place and the headlights flickering back on. He turned to where Aziraphale was inspecting the injured person and the sudden realization that he may have killed them gripped him. _That_ would be an entire wrench in their great stupid plan. 

“She’s still alive,” Aziraphale called over his shoulder, panicked, “but she’s out cold.” 

He watched as the angel waved his hands and mended a few broken bones and popped her nose back into place. 

“Well don’t just stand there, Crowley! Help me get her into the car!” 

Crowley was about to object but thought otherwise. He supposed if worse came to worse, he could perform a small miracle and convince her not to blab on them. They’d have to see when she came to. 

He slid down into the ditch and took the young woman’s feet, Aziraphale lifting her beneath her arms. Awkwardly, they carried her to the car. 

“Watch her _head,_ Crowley!” Aziraphale snapped as Crowley shoved her feet onto the seat, the young woman’s head lolling comically and her long dark hair covering her face. Sure that she was properly settled, Aziraphale turned and gathered the items that she had dropped in the accident, placing them on the floor near her. The angel snapped his fingers and the unnatural light winked out. Aziraphale took one self-conscious look around the dark lane before getting into the car. Crowley, his hand on the doorhandle, paused. Something was moving in the trees, staring at them. His keen sense of smell picked up graveyard dirt and rot. His eyes widened and he got into the car, adjusting the mirror and looking into it as he slammed on the gas, careening forwards onto the icy lane at a demonic speed. 

Watching from afar, a pair of unnatural amber eyes blinked.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  


Aziraphale stood at the foot of the master bed and fretted. Crowley, sitting backwards in a wooden chair he had dragged up from the kitchen, stared. On the bed, laid out like she were being prepared for her coffin, was the young woman he had hit with his car.   
  
Aziraphale had made a big fuss over taking her upstairs and tending to her, still supremely annoyed with him over the fact that he had accidentally squashed her. For his part, Crowley was _a little_ embarrassed. The truth was that he had taken the country lane because he thought it was pretty, and his mind had been a little… _Preoccupied_ with things other than road safety. He had only realized something was in his path when it was flung from the side of the car into the ditch. 

“Go get her things from the car,” Aziraphale ordered him, carrying the young woman up the stairs. Crowley, a bit put out, had gone and retrieved her things without complaint. He had pulled out a giant green book, and what looked like a seventeenth century pendulum— As well as a bag that held an iPad, a very stuffed and haphazard notebook, loose pencils, and what looked astonishingly like dowsing rods. Crowley regarded these items with a bit of confusion, bringing them upstairs to the master bedroom where Aziraphale was anxiously examining the woman all over for any wounds or hurts he may have missed. Crowley had put her things in a pile on the bedside table. 

After Aziraphale had administered to her, they took to their respective positions— and waited. 

Crowley adjusted in his seat, lifting up his head from where it had rested across his arm draped over the back of the chair. 

“This girl’s sorta odd, don’t you think?” 

Aziraphale stopped pacing and stared at him in confusion. 

“What do you mean?” 

Crowley took in the image of his suit, his tartan bow tie, standing next to the young woman who was wearing a long green tartan skirt and a blouse that wouldn’t look out of place on a turn of the century school marm. He blinked. 

“Nothing…,” he muttered. Aziraphale resumed his pacing.

“Hello? I’m hooooome!” 

Aziraphale jumped and looked to Crowley in panic. 

“Adam!” he hissed, “what do we do?!” 

“Oh, just go and greet him, silly,” Crowley groaned, rolling his eyes, “I’ll be down in a minute.” 

Aziraphale practically ran from the room and closed the door behind him. Beneath them, he could hear the loud noise of Aziraphale greeting Adam warmly and striking up an almost normal conversation with the boy, Dog’s small excited barks punctuating their conversation. Crowley smirked. Aziraphale was a terrible liar, but he was a _skilled_ fibber. 

He stood leisurely and wandered over to the dresser where the yarrow lay on the polished wooden surface. He smiled softly at it, fishing in his pocket and pulling out the ring he had meant to give to him. He had thought that this romantic gesture would be something sweet, something true— But what had happened instead was something far more magical and incredible than he had ever hoped for. He placed it beside the yarrow and was happy. 

He turned and looked at the young woman, her glasses folded and placed beside her hand. She seemed far too young to be wearing long tartan skirts and carrying heavy books and dowsing rods. He furrowed his brow a moment before leaving her, closing the door behind him and going downstairs to greet Adam.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
_“You’re going to have to be the one to save the world, mi amore,” her mother said fondly, running a hand along Anathema’s long dark hair. Anathema, seated at the sleek kitchen table, frowned at the little drawing on the front cover of Agnes’ book that she had been working on. The figure had a shining aura, a rainbow of emotions, the coloured lens she saw when she looked at people. She blinked and looked up, out toward the shining sea, and Anathema felt her body moving across the surface of the water toward her childhood home perched on the cliffside. She looked in and saw her eleven year old self staring back. Their twin dark eyes met._ _  
__  
__“_ _Good and evil guideth the Great Beast, Principality and Duke each. Betwixt undying yarrow and golden vine, the boy learneth temperance,” whispered the little girl who was her twin, and Anathema felt her own childish voice echoing through her bones._ _  
__  
_ Anathema opened her eyes.   
  
She was disoriented and confused, the world a strange blur of unfamiliar surroundings. She saw what could be a wooden ceiling, and an overhead light that shone down mercilessly on her. She groaned and tried to move her head, but a wave of nausea stayed her. Her brows furrowed and she closed her eyes again, trying to stop the room from spinning. After a few moments she moved her hands and determined that she was lying on top of a comforter, likely on a bed. Her hands felt something curved and cool and she recognized it immediately as her glasses. Blearily, she picked them up and put them on her eyes, opening them slowly. The room, now in focus, didn’t aggravate her nausea as badly and she looked around.   
  
She was in an unfamiliar bedroom, in what looked like one of the many small cottages that were scattered in small towns all across England. She adjusted slightly, moving a roll of messy blankets from beneath her. She looked to her right and saw typical bedroom furniture, a cream coloured coat hanging from a hook by the door, a pair of oxford wingtips beneath it. The closet was open, and draped messily across the top was a black suit jacket and a pair of slacks. She looked to the left and saw that it was dark outside, the curtains over the window thrown to the side. Holding the curtains back was a haphazard pile of books that looked ancient, manuscripts and messy handwritten notes piled in an incomprehensible order around the small chaise that was propped there. On the windowsill sat an empty mug.   
  
Anathema tried sitting up, still squinting in the bright light shining above her, and managed to swing her feet around to touch the floor. She felt both extremely sore and somehow deeply invigorated. She swallowed, and tried to remember what had happened.   
  
She had been in the wood, doing calculations with her pendulum… Then she had run somewhere… And then lights? She furrowed her brow, a monstrous headache blooming behind her eyes. She stood up, wobbly, and looked over to the dresser, seeing a small sprig of white flowers and a small golden ring sitting innocently on the wooden surface, and caught her face in the mirror. She looked herself over, trying to see if she was injured in any way, but she looked perfectly fine. Slowly, she made her way to the door and out into the dark hall. The house was completely dark as she made her way downstairs and into a homey living room and kitchen. She looked outside and saw a street sign illuminated by an old lamp post.   
  
“Hogback Lane,” she muttered, the name filtering through her confused consciousness until it finally arrived at a place she recognized. She _was_ still in Tadfield. Whatever had happened to her, she was still in the village. Her inability to remember caused a surge of panic inside her. What if the people who hurt her were _right here?_ What if they had brought her back for a reason? She _was_ searching for the Anti-Christ after all… Maybe someone had found out.   
  
She heard a strange, unnatural rustling and her heart jumped into her throat. Something about that noise _wasn't human._  
  
Looking quietly about the kitchen, she crept to the door and opened it, thanking her lucky stars that it didn’t creak or make any noise. As silently as was possible, she crept out the door and closed it behind her, making her way quickly down the path and along the road toward the centre of town. The further she got away from the house, the more adrenaline seemed to course through her veins and she found herself running at full speed toward her own cottage, gasping for breath in the frigid February air. When she finally alighted at her gate she was inexplicably weeping. She unlatched the gate and ran inside, her hands trembling as she pulled out the key she left on a chain around her neck, opened the door with vibrating hands.   
  
In the safety of her own cottage, she slumped against the door, burying her head in her hands. She had no idea where any of her things were… Her pendulum, her dowsing rods, her iPad… She couldn’t even FaceTime her mother for consolation… And what was worse, she didn’t know where Agnes’ book was.   
  
She sniffed and wiped her nose. _Agnes’ book._   
  
_“Betwixt undying yarrow and golden vine,” whispered her own childish voice across time and space._   
  
Anathema lifted her head, in shock.   
  
There, sitting innocently on the dresser, had been what she had been searching for.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a quick chapter for ya'll, depending on what i can get done this week i might update on friday and monday--- this is sort of in the middle of a lot of shit i've written so i just need to like... link it together tm. thanks ya'll!!!

_Earlier…_   
  
“Well, I didn’t _mean_ to hit her… She was standin’ in the middle of the bloody road on a dark winter night!”   
  
“Yes,” sighed Aziraphale, “I know, dear…”   
  
“Ugh,” Crowley groaned. He was draped across the armchair by the fireplace, his legs over one arm and his torso leaning against the back. He threw his sunglasses off onto the mantlepiece and looked moodily into the dark coals. He had debated lighting a fire, but he didn’t feel like it. The coolness of the room kept him in his bad mood and he was determined to stay in it. He looked upstairs when he heard Adam drop something in his room, now thoroughly convinced that the boy hadn’t gone immediately to bed like they had asked, but couldn’t be arsed to go upstairs and scold him.   
  
“This is _shite,_ ” Crowley sighed.   
  
“It is… Not ideal,” Aziraphale agreed ruefully, sinking into the puffy brown sofa, depressed. He was holding a mug of cocoa in his hands and not drinking it. “I was _certain_ Gabriel was going to come flying down to reprimand me for all of those miracles I just performed…”   
  
“Well, he didn’t, but…,” Crowley twisted his lip, thinking. On the one hand, he could tell Aziraphale about what he had seen in the snowy dark wood and put him into a panic, but on the other he could _not_ tell him and hope for the best. He sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. _No,_ he thought, _he wouldn’t hide things from Aziraphale. Not anymore._ There wasn’t any _point._   
  
“I saw something… Uhh… Not so good when we were in the woods there,” he began lamely, grinding his teeth and looking at the dark living room window.   
  
“Oh?” Aziraphale prompted, licking his lips nervously, his languished depression suddenly sharpened to low key panic as he sat up straighter on the sofa.   
  
“Yeah… I mean, I genuinely don’t one hundred percent _know_ that it was who I thought it was, but uhh… I sort of _sensed_ , so... “   
  
Aziraphale impatiently swallowed and seemed to beg him to continue.   
  
“I thought I saw Ligur, a demon, one of my uhh… _Coworkers,_ I guess. He hangs around Hestur a lot…”   
  
Aziraphale’s eyes widened in panic. “I _know_ that name… ‘Ligur’... Yes! I’m almost certain I’ve heard that name before, in– Well, _Upstairs._ ”   
  
Crowley was taken aback. “Wot?”   
  
“Yes… Well…,” Aziraphale looked around as though he were looking for eavesdroppers, and leaned in conspiratorially, “You see, Michael… Michael uses what she calls… _‘Back channels’_ sometimes. I always suspected she talked to, uh… Downstairs, more than she let on… She always seemed to know what was going to happen, and I could have _sworn_ once I heard her use that name when she thought nobody was listening.”   
  
Crowley, though struck with the unfairness of what he had just been told, was equally and more actively struck with amazement at how much information Aziraphale seemed to have been collecting. He doubted that Aziraphale would have ever shared these kinds of observations with him before, but now… Now things were different between them.   
  
“You little scandalmonger,” he teased, a smile growing on his face, “All this time and you’ve been collecting hot goss about your bosses in secret?”   


Aziraphale flushed and pursed his lips. “Oh, stop! It’s useful now, isn’t it?”   
  
Crowley smirked and nodded, opening his palms. “No, fair… Fair. It’s useful information.” He paused and couldn’t help himself. “So what, did you…,” he snickered, “Did you, like… Hide behind a pole and listen in?”   
  
Aziraphale rolled his eyes dramatically and sourly put his mug on the coffee table, crossing his legs and arms. “Oh, _hush_ , you fool demon. If you _must_ know, I was often not exactly _noticed_ in heaven, being but a principality, and a demoted one at that… Nobody would really want to talk to me, sort of… Acted like getting your wings removed was contagious, you see…”   
  
Crowley’s smile immediately fell and he blinked. “Oh, I’m… I’m sorry–”   
  
“No, no, dear,” Aziraphale smiled, holding up a hand, “It’s fine, let me continue… Well. So nobody wants to speak to a demoted angel, and so I often went unnoticed and _heard_ things.”   
  
Crowley sighed. “So basically, what you’re saying is that Hell has an idea we’re together near Tadfield, and that Michael will probably know too.”   
  
“More or less…”   
  
“Great.”   
  
They sat in tense silence for many minutes before Crowley untangled himself from the armchair and went to lie down on the couch beside Aziraphale, who was sitting rigidly and staring into his cocoa on the coffee table. He laid his head pointedly in Aziraphale’s lap, and the angel lifted his hands and tutted fondly, looking down at him. Crowley, seeing Aziraphale from below, began to laugh. 

“This is… Silly, isn’t it? This whole bloody thing?” 

“What do you mean?” Aziraphale smiled at him, his brows quirking and relaxing against the back of the sofa. One hand tentatively laid itself across Crowley’s chest and the other reached for his long reddish hair. Humming slightly to himself, he began to run his fingers through Crowley’s locks. 

Crowley stared up at Aziraphale with a smirk on his face. 

“I just mean… This all just seems so stupid. The world, good and evil, people to make choices… It just feels like a very silly elaborate way to make a point.” 

Aziraphale laughed quietly and shook his head. 

“Maybe there isn’t one… A _point,_ I mean. Have you thought about that?” 

Crowley sat up slightly, affronted. “There better be a fuckin’ _point,_ I didn’t get thrown into a pool of burning sulfur for there to be no _point._ ” 

Crowley looked at Aziraphale, really looked at him, and laid back down, regarding him thoughtfully. 

“And anyways… I thought you were on board with there being a _point_ to all this _,_ mister ‘ _Ineffable Plan._ ’ Remember?” 

Aziraphale closed his eyes and laughed in a way that suggested he was floating in new land and had no idea what to think. 

“Oh… I don’t know, Crowley. I don’t know anymore. Everything is different now…” 

Crowley closed his eyes and didn’t say anything and hoped beyond hope that Aziraphale wasn’t regretting what they had done. 

“You know…,” Aziraphale began haltingly after a while, “I… I _truly_ believed that when I decided I was going to kiss you, in the restaurant there… That I was going to be damned.” 

Crowley cracked an eye open and raised an eyebrow. “Really?” 

“Yes… Really. Or—Or that you would be… You’d be transformed into an angel again, or something equally foolish…” Aziraphale continued, confessing bashfully, a pink tinge coming to his cheeks, “To be frank, I had no idea _what_ was going to happen— But I thought _something_ would happen. I thought… Well I thought it must _have_ to, seeing as we are supposedly hereditary enemies.” 

“You kissed me anyways,” Crowley stated, the weight of that action pressing even further into the deepest chambers of his heart as he realized Aziraphale had completely thrown caution to the wind in that moment, uncaring of his fate. He had been willing to be damned in order to finally feel the sensation of their lips touching. 

“Yes,” Aziraphale whispered, “I did.” 

They stared long into one another’s eyes and something ancient passed between them, some deep understanding that went deeper than the roots of the earth. 

“What—What _really happened,_ afterward? In the room?” Aziraphale pressed, licking his lips, his hand methodically running through Crowley’s hair. 

Crowley rolled his eyes, his lip quirking. “Well, you see, when two people love each other very much, and they get drunk at a _discrete gentleman’s club,”_ —Aziraphale clicked his tongue in amused annoyance and rolled his eyes—“they sometimes go back to an antique bookshop to _fuck._ ” 

Aziraphale swatted his head playfully. “Oh, _stop_ being obtuse. You know what I meant.” 

Crowley did know. He just didn’t know what to make of it. In Hell, it paid to be a know it all, to have explanations, to be one step ahead of everyone else. His insides squirmed as he licked his lips and tried to come up with some clever, knowledgeable answer that would explain what had _really_ happened between them in Nice. His bright mind wandered as he was lost in the sensation of Aziraphale caressing his hair, working out the knots that he had carelessly allowed to form. It had felt… Incredibly, it had felt as though they had _shared a body—_ and not in the sexual sense. It had felt as though they had genuinely occupied one another’s form at the same time. 

He blinked his yellow eyes and looked up into Aziraphale’s face, which was nodding slightly against his chest, his eyes closed. 

“Did you feel like… Like you were _me_?” 

Aziraphale opened his eyes and blinked, looking down at Crowley in his lap. 

“Hmm?” 

“Did you feel like… When we were together, did you feel like you were me and I was you?” 

Aziraphale hummed and eventually nodded. “Yes… It was all very confusing, of course, but… I do believe I _did._ There were a few moments when I thought my hands were your hands.” 

“I did too,” Crowley exclaimed curiously, “Bloody weird…” 

He caught Aziraphale’s expression and elaborated. 

“Not _bad_ weird. Just… Weird.” 

“I never expected… To be with a demon to be like… _That,_ ” Aziraphale said haltingly, the confusing nature of their evening together making it difficult for him to find the right words to express himself, “it was wonderful and pleasant and unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.” 

“Me too,” Crowley grunted, rubbing his forehead, “It’s never been like _that_ before…” 

“Well. We didn’t _explode_ or anything so… _That’s_ a start… A rather _good_ start...” 

Aziraphale was looking down at Crowley with a singular expression that Crowley had rarely, if ever, seen upon the angel’s face. His eyes opened and closed rapidly and he was supremely embarrassed to find his face flushing in red, staring up at the angel who was looking down at him with smouldering eyes like he were a particularly scrumptious dessert. Crowley swallowed hard as he watched Aziraphale’s pink tongue flicking across his lips. Instead of kissing him, like he had expected, Aziraphale’s plump, perfectly manicured hand that had been idly lying across Crowley’s chest crawled down across the flesh of his belly and stopped at the waistband of his pants, hooking a pinkie playfully on the edge of his dark jeans. Crowley’s jaw clenched as he stared into Aziraphale’s eyes. 

Crowley saw that the angel was _hungry_ , and that he planned to savour what he was about to devour. Crowley did not need to breathe, but he was breathing hard now, his chest rising and falling, gooseflesh unintentionally rising at the feather soft touch of Aziraphale’s hand. Crowley’s head was almost empty as the angel’s hand dove further and his head bent down close to his. One of the stray thoughts that did manage to attach to Crowley’s mind as Aziraphale kissed him and his clothes slowly disappeared was that Aziraphale’s chosen sin wasn’t gluttony or hedonism like he had thought all those years— It was _lust._

A while later, he thought he heard footsteps in the kitchen, but he couldn't be certain. He was busy hearing rather a lot of noises... And _making_ a few of them himself.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so so so sorry for the hella late update... I got sick TWICE in the last two weeks (??) and then I was selling my art at a convention so I was very swamped. Thanks for yer patience, ya'll are sweethearts.

Ligur crept along the edge of the dark graveyard and into the shadow of the church, his eyes bright and simmering. His lip curled as he stared across the frozen ground toward a large statue near an ancient oak tree, its marble curves covered in a dusting of newly fallen snow. A stone face, beautiful and sad, looked out across the dead, attached to a body in flowing robes that knelt on a pedestal. Ligur’s eyes clicked curiously as he blinked and stared, the soft orange light from a distant street lamp illuminating the beautiful alabaster wings that extended into the dark sky. Ligur spat on the ground, and his saliva hissed and burned a hole through the snow all the way to the mossy, sleeping ground. 

Humans thought images of angels would protect them from evil. They were wrong. 

He exhaled loudly and the substance of his body dissolved into flecks of ash, curling upward sinisterly like smoke across the old bending trees and thick forests. He had been flitting across the world, thinking long on the soul he wanted to tempt today, and had finally made his decision. There was a woman, in London, full of malaise and full of herself. She looked away from her husband’s eye, and looked toward his younger brother. He knew that all he had to do was put the fire under her and she would jump into her lust, her secret desires. He felt her soul across time and space practically begging for someone to tell her to act, to do what she secretly dreamed of. Ligur curled across the treetops toward his destination, a swarm of unknowable darkness, and was gleeful. Earth had not much time left, and these last few temptations must be _savoured._

He drifted along, thinking deeply, until something chillingly familiar caught his eye. He stopped dead in the air, disguised as a cloud fleeting like a shadow across the frozen night, and gazed down into an otherwise unremarkable forest clearing. 

A woman was standing and holding a pendulum, which was suspended between her fingers and hung eerily still despite the night breezes. Ligur squinted, in amazement. He _knew_ that pendulum. _That_ was the pendulum which he had tempted the infamous Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins to take from the body of one of the hundreds of innocent women the foolish man had burned alive in a folly search for witches. In reality, the pendulum had been a holy gift from an angel to Saint Justina of Padua and had been blessed to swing forward and direct the user toward sources of true evil. Ligur swept down into the dark treeline and took to his bodily form once more, kneeling in the snowy underbrush and staring at the young woman by the light of the silvery moon. She groaned in frustration. She seemed to be using it to look for something, and wasn’t having any luck. She tried again, holding the ancient pendulum out. Suddenly, it swung forward, directly toward Ligur’s heart and he grinned, monstrously wide. _So the old thing still worked…_

He had tempted Witchfinder General Hopkins to take the pendulum away from one of the women who had come into possession of it in order for demons to move quickly and silently across the earth. The pendulum had been a thorn in demons’ sides for many centuries before it had gotten locked away as a curiosity in some man’s heirlooms. He had never expected to see it again. 

He split his body into darkness and the pendulum fell flat once again. The young woman let out a breath of excitement and quickly collected her things, diving forward into the underbrush. He curled above and chased her through the freezing air, breathing down at her back as she flew toward a country road. He looked down and saw two bright lights heading toward her, and urged her forward, whispering at the back of her mind, goading the goosebumps rising on her back to propel her towards oncoming death. 

The car slammed into her, like he planned, and he hid in the darkness out of the way. The car stopped, slightly damaged. He smiled and thought might tempt the driver to abandon her, to take the pendulum and throw it in the deepest waters they could find. Finally rid the world of an angel’s gift— And share in _two_ delicious temptations on one evening. 

Instead of a weak and terrified human, he instead felt an eerily familiar presence, and furrowed his brow. A man got out of the car and scampered to the side of the road where the young woman lay, and to Ligur’s eyes he was impossibly bright. _Inhumanly_ bright. Ligur winced in pain as a light came on in the forest lane, floating ethereally above the scene. He let out a breath of shock. _An angel._ His eyes adjusted slowly and he stared at the angel from the trees as he tended to the young woman’s wounds.   
  
A tall, lanky figure was circling the car, snapping its figures and popping the machine back into place. They stepped into the light and Ligur saw an all too familiar head of reddish hair, the angel’s unnatural light glinting off of an equally familiar pair of sunglasses.   
  
Ligur watched avidly as, angel and demon, they piled the young woman’s body into the back of the car. Crowley stopped in his tracks suddenly and seemed to stiffen, his nostrils flaring, smelling something he did not want to smell. Crowley turned and Ligur’s amber eyes glowed out of the darkness of the underbrush. He stared into Crowley’s serpentine eyes where he knew they were hidden behind his sunglasses and he felt his shiver of fear and trepidation that echoed across the space between them.   
  
Crowley turned around quickly and got into the car, speeding away as though all the forces of hell were pursuing him.  
  
Soon, they likely _would be._  
  
“ _Crowley, Crowley, Crowley…_ ,” Ligur muttered to himself, under his breath, “what _have_ you been doing?”  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


Aziraphale tentatively knocked on the master bedroom door, awkwardly holding a fancy silver tea platter which was piled high in steaming hot eggs, toast, ham, waffles and, precariously, one small glass of orange juice and a cup of tea. It was mid morning and the young lady they had hit still hadn’t woken up or come out of the master bedroom. He had himself woken up in a panic early in the morning from snoozing in the living room with Crowley’s head in his lap when he had realized that Adam needed to get to school. 

The boy had stumbled downstairs, half asleep, and looked at the clock. 

“Oh, bugger,” he mumbled, “missed the bus.” 

Aziraphale had leapt up and rudely awakened Crowley, who begrudgingly dragged himself out to the Bentley to drive Adam to school. Watching them go through the kitchen window, Aziraphale had mused that, though they had decided that Adam was Aziraphale’s son by sake of appearance, they really should have picked Crowley to be the boy’s “real” father. The resemblance was uncanny, really, the way they both stumbled sleepily to the car with matching cranky expressions. After watching them go, Aziraphale bit his lip and wondered what was to be done about the woman lying upstairs. He wrung his hands and stared at the ceiling. There really had been no reason to take her here— She had been quite injured in the accident, and regardless of whether he had healed her, the more logical (or at least, human) conclusion was that they should have brought her to a doctor. Now she was going to think they were _weird_ or something. 

Aziraphale absently started to cook. If there was anything that put people’s minds at ease, it was breakfast. He’d feed her a big breakfast and explain that he was a retired nurse or something, and that she’d likely be more comfortable resting than waiting forever at a hospital. _Yes,_ he agreed happily with himself, pleased at the solidity of his fib, _a retired nurse!_

It did not occur to Aziraphale that he did not look to be at an age for retirement whatsoever, but then, angels and demons struggled with the whole concept of aging in general. 

He listened carefully at the bedroom door and knocked again. No one answered him. At his feet, Dog had followed him and the smell of bacon up the stairs and was excitedly wiggling his body at Aziraphale’s heel. 

“Oh, you can’t go in there, you silly creature,” Aziraphale muttered, scolding him. Dog ignored him completely. 

He fumbled the breakfast tray to one side and turned the knob on the bedroom door, elbowing his way in. 

“I’m sorry to disturb you, I brought breakfast and—“ 

The bedroom was empty. Dog bounded into the room and leapt swiftly up onto the comforter on the bed, barking a few times and wagging his tail excitedly. Aziraphale blinked and walked over to the disheveled bed, sitting down and putting the tray beside him. He furrowed his brow and tried to think of when she had possibly managed to slip by them and leave. He absentmindedly took one of the pieces of toast and chewed on it, his face going pink. He supposed he had been rather distracted the night before, so it wasn’t _exactly_ surprising she had managed to slip passed them. 

He looked to the bedside table and hummed in displeasure. She had accidentally left her things behind. Crowley’s comment that she had been a little odd filtered back into his mind and he supposed she _had_ been. The large satchel that sat on the bedside table was very worn, and a few papers and a curiously bright silver chain were bursting from beneath its cover flap. Beneath it was a very large book with a worn green cover. The lettering had long since faded from its spine but Aziraphale was immediately interested— He hadn’t been able to give the book much thought the night before, but looking at it now it was almost assuredly a very old book, sixteenth century at the latest. Aziraphale stood up from the bed and picked up the heavy satchel. Something shiny and silver fell out of it onto the wooden floor, rolling under the dresser. 

On the bed, Dog had found the unattended slices of bacon and had stolen a few, leaping down onto the other side of the bed to devour them loudly. Completely distracted, Aziraphale bent down, putting the bag onto the rug, and reached for the shiny object, pulling it out by its chain. The moment he touched it he felt a familiar sensation course through his body, and he stared at it. It was most assuredly a blessed object, and a powerful one to boot. An angel had almost assuredly done the blessing. Aziraphale narrowed his eyes and saw the strange sigils and auras floating in the mist that only angels and demons could see if they concentrated hard enough. It was a pendulum, the sort that new age hippies and wiccans used to help them find their lost cell phones or their car keys, only this one was _real._ If Aziraphale had to guess, it had been blessed to sus out sources of evil. 

Aziraphale placed the pendulum onto the bed and turned to the book, pulling it toward him and reading the silver lettering on the cover, which had fared much better over time than the lettering on the spine. 

_The Nice and Accurate Prophefief of Agnef Nutter, VVitch._

Aziraphale blinked, very slowly. 

He pulled the book closer to his eyes, holding it a few inches away from his face and read the title again, convinced that he had somehow misread it the first time. The faded silver lettering on the green cover innocently glinted back at him in the morning light. 

_“The Nice and Accurate Prophefief of Agnef Nutter, VVitch”_ the title read, underwhelmingly bashful and unaware of its own rarity. 

Aziraphale feverishly flipped open the book to the title page. 

“ _G O O D O M E N S_

_Being an Narrative of Certain Eventf, Occurring in the Laft Efeven Years of Human History,_

_With STRICT ACCORDANCE_

_af fhall be fhovvn_

_By The_

_NICE AND ACCURATE PROPHECIES OF AGNES NUTTER, VVITCH.”_

Outside, Crowley had arrived home and was making his cranky way through the front door, slamming things on counters and hall tables. Dog, hearing him come home, leapt out of the room and barked excitedly all the way down the stairs. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale called, his eyes wide and unmoving, staring at the title page of the ancient book.

“CROOOOWLEEEEEY!”   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  


Crowley had dove up the stairs, running almost on all fours, and burst into the master bedroom brandishing the first weapon he had managed to alight upon, which, embarrassingly, had turned out to be an umbrella. He held the old mangled umbrella above his head as though he were wielding an axe, his sunglasses crooked on his face in his rush to get to Aziraphale’s side.   
  
“AZIRAPHALE! What–”   
  
He stopped dead, Dog barking excitedly at his heels and jumping up and down. Aziraphale was standing perfectly still by the dresser, looking thoroughly unharmed and holding an old book. Crowley glared at him and lowered his fearsome weapon.   
  
“What the _bloody fuck,_ Aziraphale?! I thought you were _dyin’_ or sssssomething!” he hissed. He looked down at Dog. “Shut up!”   
  
Dog stopped barking and sat back on his haunches, wagging his tail, still clearly thinking they were playing some sort of game. For an ex-Hellhound, Dog clearly _did not_ make a decent guard dog.   
  
Aziraphale still had not moved a muscle, and was looking down at the book as if God Herself was looking back up through the pages at him. Crowley made a face and put down the umbrella, leaning it against the wall and making his way cautiously over to Aziraphale’s side. Clearly, the angel had officially cracked. The pressure was too much for him and now he was catatonic. Could angels even _become_ catatonic? Crowley flipped his sunglasses onto his head and bent down to peer into Aziraphale’s shocked face.   
  
“Angel?” he asked, shaking his head slightly, “Hellooooo?”   
  
He waved a hand in front of Aziraphale’s face and the angel jumped as though he had been electrocuted.   
  
“Crowley!” he exclaimed, as though his presence was a surprise and he _hadn’t_ just howled his name as though all the legions of Heaven, Hell and Earth were in the process of murdering him.   
  
“Yeah, hi, Crowley here, just checking in on planet Aziraphale, where clearly angels think it’s fine to cry out desperately for help when they don’t need it,” Crowley bit furiously, leaning back and crossing his arms.  
  
“Oh, oh– I wasn’t crying out for help, I...,” Aziraphale muttered distractedly, his eyes wide as he clumsily reached back and sat on the bed, holding the shabby green book like it were the first Holy text. He looked up into Crowley’s eyes and let out a breath.   
  
“Crowley… _Crowley…._ ”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Crowley…”   
  
“Bloody–– _WHAT, Aziraphale?!”_   
  
“This could change everything… This book could change–– It could tell us _everything_.”   
  
Aziraphale took a deep breath.   
  
“This book was left behind by the young lady… It’s… It is the book I had told you about, the extremely rare book of prophecies? _‘The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter_ ,” he whispered reverently, looking down at the book like a mother at a newborn.   
  
Crowley blinked. “So?”   
  
Aziraphale looked up at him, offended. “So?! What do you _mean,_ ‘so’?!”   
  
“Well, it’s just a _book_ , Aziraphale… Even if it _is_ rare.”   
  
Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at him, and not looking away, opened the book to a random page and stabbed his finger onto the yellowing thick parchment without looking. He looked down and read the words that he had chosen. 

_“Prophecy 2890:_   
  
_When that the angel readeth these words of mine, the ende times are certes upon us. Hearken welle, Demon of Hell who shadeth his eye with darkness, and **listeneth** to thine lover.” _   
  
Crowley stared at Aziraphale, his mouth agape. 

  
“It _doesn’t_ say that,” he said, flabbergasted, “It _can’t possibly.”_   
  
Aziraphale, his lips pursed in annoyance, flipped the book around and handed it to him. Crowley took the book and read the prophecy himself, blinking a few times and reading it a few times over. His eyes slid down the page to the next prophecy.   
  
_“Prophecy 2891:_   
  
_He cannot say ‘Yes’ to thine proposal if thou **dost not ask**.” _   
  
Crowley’s mouth hung open and he glared at the book, embarrassed and offended.   
  
“What is it?” Aziraphale asked him curiously, craning his head to try and look at the page.   
  
“Nothing,” Crowley hissed, snapping the book shut and shoving it toward the angel’s hands. Aziraphale took it and fervently ran his fingers over the cover.   
  
“Oh!” Aziraphale exclaimed a few moments later, oblivious to Crowley’s red face and grinding teeth, “She also had _this!_ ”   
  
He enthusiastically pulled forward the blessed pendulum and held it for Crowley to see. “Don’t touch it, dear, it’s been blessed by an angel– Very potent.”   
  
Crowley took a step back and stared at it as though it were a dangerous animal. “Wot– So you’re saying I could have accidentally touched that and gotten completely turned to dust?!”   
  
“Oh, well… I suppose so,” Aziraphale said uncomfortably, holding the strange pendulum up to his eyes and looking at its silvery filigree and simple amethyst stone with consternation.   
  
“What’s it do, anyways?” Crowley asked somewhat nervously, regarding the satchel sitting innocently on the floor with a mixture of disgust and fear. What else could that strange young woman be hiding in there?   
  
“Well, I _think_ it’s supposed to swing forward when evil forces are present, as a way to locate them and avoid them.”   
  
“Can’t be,” Crowley shrugged, “Otherwise it would have swung forward to me the second you pulled it out.”   
  
Aziraphale smiled a little, somewhat sympathetically, and kept his thoughts on Crowley’s status as an evil being to himself.   
  
“Yes, dear, that’s true… I’m sure it might be for another purpose then,” he said soothingly.   
  
“I’m evil!” Crowley protested, hearing the patronizing tone in Aziraphale’s voice. He waved his arms violently and jutted out his hips. “I’m– Big evil! Super– Just, I mean _so evil!_ Evil City, population: Crowley!”   
  
“Yes dear,” Aziraphale agreed kindly, “Of course.”   
  
“Bah… Shut up,” Crowley mumbled, looking away.   
  
Aziraphale stared at the book for a moment and then caught Crowley’s eye.   
  
“So uh… Do you think we should we read it?”   
  
Crowley glared at it.   
  
“Do you think it has anything actually _nice_ to say?” Crowley grumbled.   
  
Aziraphale sighed and shrugged. “Well… Only one way to find out…” 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey ya'll, i was on a trip last week so thanks for yer patience. here's a short chapter while i edit and put together some of the next following chapters. Thanks <3

Gabriel walked up to the shabby old book store that Aziraphale operated in order to keep his human front. He shook his head, smirking fondly, like a father of an eccentric child. He truly did not understand Aziraphale’s fascination with… He paused.  _ With…?  _

_ Books.  _ He couldn’t understand Aziraphale’s fascination with books. Or food, for that matter. The idea of consuming gross matter in any way made Gabriel feel strange and uncomfortable. He stared at the small sign hanging in the window of the dirty old door, blinking at the odd hours and the little sign that read ‘ _ Closed’  _ in the angel’s distinctive handwriting. Gabriel, unmindful of time and uncaring of occasion, let himself in. 

He looked around at the stacks of books, a decidedly heavy coating of dust on everything. Perhaps he had finally closed the shop. Aziraphale could be pretty…  _ Close  _ about his material objects, a tendency that probably originated from being in the material world for so long. Gabriel assured himself that this was only temporary— Once Armageddon was finished and Aziraphale was back in heaven among his own kind, he was sure he would forget these human tendencies. 

He walked through the shop and went into the back, where he had fought Beelzebub not so long ago. The whole shop had a strange feeling of being neglected, and the back room was especially telling. Firstly, it seemed somehow emptier than before, a few books missing and papers arranged in an uncharacteristically neat way. Secondly, two empty wine glasses and an empty bottle of wine sat alone near a table. He walked towards them and his brow furrowed. He recognized the bottle— It was the same one that Aziraphale and the demon Crowley had been drinking as he and Lord Beelzebub fought. It looked as though it had been sitting there for quite some time, covered in a thick layer of dust. He looked at the wine glasses in confusion.  
  
Aziraphale wasn’t here. He hadn’t been here for  _ months.  _

He closed his eyes and reached out into the earth with his spirit, searching for Aziraphale’s bright energy along the stratosphere, willing himself to be pulled to wherever Aziraphale was. He blinked his violet eyes. 

_ Gabriel couldn’t see him.  _

He blinked rapidly and tried again. 

Nothing. 

It was as though Aziraphale had disappeared from the heaven and the earth. He looked over to the wine glasses and saw the demon Crowley and his lingering gazes. 

Gabriel swallowed hard. He had a visit to make.  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


Adam Young walked through Hogback wood, dragging his feet through the muddy mixture of snow and rotting leaves, and felt very, very alone. It was damp and cold, and the sun was setting behind the trees. He supposed it was a pretty evening, the way the sun streamed through the bare branches above, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to appreciate it. He knew that he had to be home soon, but he also couldn’t bring himself to care if he was late. What did it matter? He’d get in trouble, sure, but he felt the same whether he was sitting alone in his bedroom or walking alone in Hogback wood. The rest of the Them had already gone home. He had the feeling that they were getting bored of him, even though they never said so. He had always been in charge of making their games, because he always had the best ideas. Lately, however, he couldn’t think of anything to do. Brian, Wensleydale, and Pepper had tried to pick up the slack, but it wasn’t the same.   
  
They had been _bored_ this evening, and Adam felt like it was his fault for making his friends feel bored. It had been very easy to pretend to be okay in Hogback wood instead of at home after his parents had… After they had…   
  
Adam stopped walking and looked blindly to the forest floor. They were _dead._   
  
He knew he was crying a little, but even though tears were running down his face he felt empty and couldn’t even feel sad. He thought of Crowley and Aziraphale, and he felt something strange twist in his heart. He wanted so badly to let them love him, to tell them how he was feeling, to run to them. They weren’t his parents, they would never be his parents– But they were kind, and they loved him in their own special ways. 

He thought about Aziraphale, his glowing happiness, his tenderness, and about Crowley, his mischievous grin, his quiet strength… He wanted so desperately to go to them, but he felt like he couldn’t.   
  
They weren’t telling him something, something important. The way he could make things disappear, the way he could conjure things from thin air, the way Crowley had looked at him when he made Dan Tyler and his friends go away… Something was terribly wrong with him. He wasn’t _normal_ , like the rest of the Them. He could make things _happen_ that they couldn’t, and it both exhilarated and terrified him.   
  
Azriraphale and Crowley had promised him that everything would be alright, and he wanted so badly to believe them.   
  
And yet…   
  
The hard faces of the Other angel and the Other demon swam across his vision, looking at him as though he were an inhuman, inanimate tool… He didn’t like the way they looked at him.   
  
He didn’t like it _at all._  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


Aziraphale and Crowley sat on the bed across from one another, their legs tucked beneath them, staring at the otherwise innocent green book that lay on the bed spread between them. It was deep into the night, and they had only exited the room in order to make supper for Adam once he had returned. Adam having long since gone to bed, they had holed themselves into the master bedroom and were digesting the contents of the book. Having finally read the last prophecy, a confusing and long one which meant absolutely nothing to them, they had put the book down.

“Fuck…,” Crowley swore.   
  
“Mmm…,” Aziraphale agreed, wide-eyed.   
  
“... _Fuck_ …”   
  
“Mmm…”   
  
“I’m–– Well. Fuck.”   
  
“Yes…”   
  
“Does… Do any of the prophecies after about 2800 make any sense to you at all?”   
  
“Not really…,” Aziraphale muttered thoughtfully, putting a finger to his chin, “I can’t make anything out of them at all, really. They’re all very contextual. I can only understand the broad strokes of some of the ones from the past…”   
  
Crowley crossed his arms. “Well. We’ll have to return the book then. To the girl.”   
  
Aziraphale looked up at him and twisted his lips, seeming to fight with himself. He knew it _technically_ was the right thing to do, but… _The book?_ This was _the_ book of prophecies.   
  
“Well, yes… I suppose…”   
  
“Listen. The girl had all that stuff in her bag, the pendulum, the book… She obviously knows something, and she probably can tell us a lot more about the shit in that book than we could sus out for ourselves.”   
  
“You’re right, of course, but… How do we know if we can trust her? We can’t be certain that she isn’t being manipulated or influenced…”   
  
“Well… She has the pendulum, which is _supposedly_ ” –– Crowley was still very peeved at it–– “somethin’ that points out sources of evil. It also works as a protection against demons, so… She’s obviously not wantin’ to get close to any demons.”   
  
“Yes, that is true. But Crowley, why? Why here, why now?”   
  
Crowley grunted and thought for a moment.   
  
“Well, the book talks a lot about the _‘Great Beast’_... She could be…. Well, she could be after _Adam._ ”   
  
“The Anti-Christ…,” Aziraphale whispered, “Of course… Agnes knows how the end of days come about, of course she would be referring to Adam…”   
  
“I think… If I had to guess… That _she_ was the one Adam was talking about when he said that a witch had moved into Jasmine Cottage,” Crowley mused, “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it makes sense.”   
  
Aziraphale blinked rapidly and raised his eyebrows. “You’re right! That’s… That must be who she was.”  
  
“We gotta return the book to her,” Crowley said, with conviction, standing up off the bed and tucking the book under his arm, “tomorrow, when Adam’s at school.”  
  
Aziraphale looked at him nervously.   
“Are you sure?”   
  
Crowley stared into the angel’s blue eyes.   
  
“Yes, I’m certain.”   
  
“Alright… I trust you.”   
  
Crowley held out his hand. Aziraphale took it.   
  
Outside in the hallway, Adam’s eyes were wide as he slowly crept back into his bedroom.   
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  


They followed an old-fashioned map of the village to the place labelled ‘Jasmine Cottage’ and found themselves parked outside of a relatively large farm house with a pretty front garden. The snow was beginning to melt and forming wet puddles around flattened yellow grass in the yard, the early March temperatures having slowly managed to claw their way up in the night. It didn’t appear anyone was home.    
  
“Should we go in?” Aziraphale asked nervously, holding the young woman’s bag in his lap.    
  
“Hmm… Somehow I don’t think she’ll be happy to see us…,” Crowley muttered, pushing his sunglasses higher onto his nose.    
  
“N-No… I don’t think so either…”    
  
“We  _ did _ hit her with a car…”    
  
“You did hit her with a car…,” Aziraphale agreed, nodding.    
  
“Shut up,” Crowley growled, craning his neck to try and peek into one of the windows.    
  
“Well… There’s nothing for it,” he continued, sitting back in the seat of the car and looking at Aziraphale, “We have to go knock on the door.”    
  
Aziraphale gulped and nodded, robotically getting out of the car. Crowley followed him, and though a little concerned that the young woman might be angry with them, couldn’t fathom why Aziraphale was so dreadfully frightened to talk to her. He was an  _ angel,  _ for fuck’s sake.    
  
“Come  _ on _ , angel,” he griped, loping to the front door as Aziraphale trailed behind him with the enthusiasm of someone who would rather be running away in terror. 

Crowley lifted his fist to knock on the door. It swung inward without him touching it, and he was suddenly face-to-face with the woman he had hit with the Bentley.   
  
“You’re _late_ ,” she told them, her eyes rimmed in heavy bags behind her round glasses, her hair in disarray. She was pointing a very peculiar and very sharp looking knife directly at them.   
  
Crowley put up his hands and took a step back.   
  
“Uh… We’re sorry?”   



	27. Chapter 27

“Sit down,” said Anathema. Her tone was light and airy, as though Crowley and Aziraphale had simply stopped in for tea. The glittering knife that she brandished with a strong hand, however, conveyed that this was not a conditional request. 

Crowley and Aziraphale sat. The kitchen table where they were seated was covered in maps, diagrams, books, and strewn with hand-written notes. They exchanged glances. Aziraphale looked panicked and Crowley rueful. 

“Who are you?” she asked, standing across from them and staring. The kitchen light glowed on them from above like the lamp in a police interrogation. 

“Well, ah— My name is Ar—Arthur Young, and this is Anthony Crowley—“ 

“You’re lying,” she cut in flatly, adjusting her round glasses and narrowing her eyes, “your auras are wrong.” 

“Our—Our auras?” Aziraphale stuttered hysterically, “my dear, you can’t possibly—“ 

“She can,” Crowley muttered, staring unblinking at Anathema passed his sunglasses. 

“What do you mean... Wrong?” Aziraphale asked her nervously, laughing, trying to make it seem as though he thought this was some funny joke. 

Anathema blinked. “You tell me,” she intoned. 

“Would— Would you mind putting the knife down, dear? Please?” 

“Not yet,” she said, pursing her lips. She motioned to the book clutched in Aziraphale’s hands with her knife. “Give me my book back.” 

Aziraphale handed it over wordlessly and she took it, tucking it under her arm and looking imperceptibly relieved. 

“If you know we’re not human, you were a fool to let us into your house in the first placccccce,” Crowley whispered, his voice hissing. He bent his head downward, his eyes flashing, looking up over the rim of the dark glasses and staring at her openly with his slitted, unblinking eyes. 

Anathema tilted her chin upward, glaring, the knife pointed steady in her hands. “Demon,” she greeted him, her voice level. 

“Witch,” Crowley replied in turn, sneering. 

Anathema hummed and flicked her eyes to Aziraphale, her knife trained on Crowley. 

“And you? Are you a demon? I know you sure as hell aren’t human.” 

“Oh— No! No, I am not a demon, I am... Well, I am... An angel...” 

Anathema furrowed her brows, her mouth parting slightly. 

Aziraphale swallowed and brought her satchel to his lap, pulling out the holy pendulum she had been using and held it in his hands, blinking fearfully and hopefully into her face. 

“You hit me with your car,” she said, flicking her eyes between them, “I should be dead. Your work, I assume?” she said, nodding to Aziraphale. 

“Y—Yes,” he stuttered, “We’ve... We’ve come to return your things, you left in such a hurry...” 

She regarded them both slowly, her knife still trained on Crowley. They stared back. 

Then she smiled, wide. She put the knife down on the table and rubbed her hands on her long skirt, offering it to Crowley. 

“My name is Anathema Device.”

Crowley stared at her hand, then at Aziraphale, who let out a heavy breath and smiled in relief. Crowley blinked once at her outstretched hand and took it, shaking it once stiffly. She enthusiastically offered it to Aziraphale, who shook it gently. 

“Tea?” she asked them brightly, turning her back on them to switch on the oil stove, filling the kettle and putting it on. 

“Oh—Oh yes please, I would love tea!” Aziraphale said kindly, still nervous. He looked to Crowley, who was staring at Anathema’s back distrustfully. Aziraphale elbowed him, nodding desperately in Anathema’s direction. 

“Oh. Tea. Yeah. Me too,” Crowley said emotionlessly. Something about her was eerie and Crowley did not like it one bit. 

“You take your tea black?” Anathema asked Crowley, turning around with a full teacup. Though it was phrased as a question, the tone was certain. She stared intensely into his face as she handed him the tea, and Crowley felt as opaque as a sheet of cling wrap before her wide green eyes. He grimaced slightly, taking the cup, annoyed at himself. He seemed to have a habit of associating with the few humans on the earth who could see through him as easily as a clean window. Adam could do it, and so could Christ... Now a mad American witch. 

She blinked, and her eyes softened. She turned to Aziraphale, who was gently replacing the blessed pendulum back into her satchel and putting the satchel on the kitchen table. 

“Milk and sugar?” she asked Aziraphale. 

“Oh yes, that would be lovely,” he agreed, folding his hands in his lap. 

She fixed Aziraphale’s tea and handed it to him, sitting comfortably across from them at the table and sipping at a teacup that looked to be more of a cup full of cream and sugar than tea. She sipped it, her elbows on the table, holding her cup with two hands. 

After a few somewhat tense moments where Aziraphale politely sipped and Crowley sat with his arms crossed, staring, not touching his tea, Anathema spoke up, adjusting her glasses and putting down her cup on the scuffed wooden table. 

“So,” she began, “you’ve both read Agnes’ book.” 

“Yes,” Aziraphale said enthusiastically, leaning forward, “I actually collect books of prophecy... But this is, well...” 

He stared, starry eyed, at the book sitting innocently on a pile of papers between them. 

“That is the  _ the _ book... The only truly accurate prophecies to ever be written...” 

“They’re on the money in every detail,” Anathema agreed, nodding, “My family has had this book since it was published. I am Agnes Nutter’s great whatever granddaughter.” 

“Oh!” Aziraphale exclaimed, surprised. 

“My family has lived by these prophecies for centuries... and Agnes has never led me astray... And she lead me here, because if I’m right, you’re here for the same reason I am.” 

“Which would be?” Crowley asked, flicking his tongue across his teeth. 

“Armageddon,” Anathema whispered, staring at them wide eyed. “It’s supposed to happen. Right here in the village.” 

“Well,  _ if _ it happens,” Aziraphale interjected, swallowing nervously, “we’ve ah... Well, Crowley and I have been trying to do things to avert Armageddon... Stop it, perhaps, if—If we can.” 

Anathema blinked rapidly and stood up, reaching for a long box of index cards and slamming them down on the kitchen table, making their teacups rattle in their saucers. She looked frantically through the indexes and pulled one out, raising it to her eyes. 

“Prophecy 3001,” she read aloud, flicking her eyes between the worn index card and the persons sat in front of her, “ _ Good and Evil guideth the Great Beaft, Principality and Duke each. Betwixt undying yarrow and golden vine, the Boy learneth Temperance. _ ” __

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged glances. She had come to the same conclusion they had. 

“You’re the angel and demon this prophecy refers to, though, I think you both know that already.” 

“Yes,” Azirphale nodded, licking his lips. 

“You know who the Anti-Christ is.” 

“Y—Yes,” Aziraphale said, clenching his jaw. 

“But we aren’t telling you who it issssss,” Crowley hissed angrily, standing up and knocking the table. He knew she would easily find out on her own, but he wasn’t about to be the one to tell her. Aziraphale stared up at him, startled. Crowley was scared and upset. He didn’t know what Anathema had planned for the Anti-Christ, and the thought of her hurting Adam in any way made his blood boil. Who knows what this witch meant by ‘stopping’ the Anti-Christ. 

Anathema paused and furrowed her brow, staring into his face. 

“Are you not telling me because you’re a demon and you want Armageddon to happen, or are you not telling me because you don’t want me to hurt whoever it is?” she asked him, her voice almost lost in thought, surveying him. 

“You guess, witch,” he murmured, his voice coming from the walls and creeping in through the windows. Anathema felt goosebumps rise on her flesh. 

He flicked his eyes to Aziraphale who seemed brighter than before. Crowley wasn’t certain, but he could swear he heard whispering voices talking in inhuman melodic notes. Anathema let out a breath, her mouth parted and her eyes wide, the first sign of fear he had seen in her yet. 

“You will not harm him,” Aziraphale said, his voice simultaneously soft and commanding. 

Anathema swallowed and stood tall, staring at them measuredly. A few moments passed and they slowly siphoned the substance of their true selves back into their human shells. 

“I think we can stop Armageddon without hurting the Anti-Christ. I’m certain of it,” she assured them. Now that they appeared human once more, she could read the fear in their eyes. They were both very afraid of her hurting whoever it was that was supposed to bring about Armageddon, on a clearly very personal level. 

“I promise,” she assured them gently, her posture softening, “I’m not interested in hurting kids... Especially kids who have great destinies they didn’t choose.” 

Crowley heard the bitterness in her voice and flicked his eyes to Agnes Nutter’s book, saying nothing. 

She gestured to the chair Crowley had vacated. “Please sit down,” she offered softly, “and tell me what your names are.” 

“Crowley,” he found himself saying, sitting. He believed her now. And if she deceived them in the end. He had ways to make her disappear. 

“I am Aziraphale,” said Aziraphale, smiling, satisfied that they had come to an agreement. 

“Aziraphale...,” Anathema repeated, rubbing her lips with her forefinger, thinking hard. “That name sounds somewhat familiar,” she muttered. 

“R-Really?” Aziraphale asked her, taken aback. As far as fame went among humans, he was rather low on the chart. In fact, he did not know any humans who recognized his name until now. 

“Mmm,” Anathema hummed, shrugging, “oh well. I’ll think of it later... So... Who is the Anti-Christ?” she asked carefully. 

Aziraphale and Crowley exchanged a glance and an agreement passed between them. Quite frankly, they were moving in the dark and Anathema’s goal was the same as theirs. The insights of her and her ancestor was only a benefit now. 

“Well... We were instructed to take him away from Tadfield, to live in London, after his parents were killed in a car accident... which wasn’t really an accident, you see... Ah... Upstairs and Downstairs both felt he wasn’t living up to his reputation.” 

“We decided to stay here instead, take care of him. We thought that maybe we could change his mind,” Crowley finished, his voice low, realizing suddenly that if Anathema was here at all... They had already failed. 

“Who is it?” Anathema asked gently, realizing the same thing. 

“Adam Young.”  
  
  
  
  
ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ̀ˋ *.*.*.*.*.* ↑_(Φ w Φ;)Ψ   
  
  
  
The dirt crumbled and cracked, something burrowing through the surface of the earth to stand, hunched, on the grassy hillside. The figure cracked their neck experimentally, clucking their tongue and brushing gentle beige dirt and pebbles from the shoulders of their morning coat. They looked around, their ragged black hair fluttering in the salty breeze that blew up the hill from the beach below. They had, thankfully, surfaced beneath the shade of a green tree, away from the hot sun beating down on the rocky cliff. They looked around at the unoccupied hollow that looked over the steep cliff like a watchtower. They smiled, and it was a labyrinthian one which betrayed ancient thoughts. They supposed, in a way, it _was_ a watchtower– Where they and their timeless friend played their hands and pulled strings. A dark eyebrow raised on the figure’s face.   
  
Their _friend_ was late. He usually was.   
  
Petulantly, as was their wont, they sat upon the rocky ground, legs crossed, looking out over the crashing ocean. They forgot what the humans called this place now, but in Beelzebub’s mind it was simply _The Meeting Place_ , a whisper at the back of their consciousness which remembered celestial harmonies and a billion gentle hands caught up in impossibly soft wings. They recalled the First Meeting, the first time they had seen an angel since their fall. It was a thousand years after the second fall, the fall of man from the Garden of Eden.   
  
_Beelzebub had ascended on the cliffside, much in the same way they would ascend six thousand years later. Flies buzzed a harmony around their head, looping and twirling and swirling around them like the celestial halo which had been shattered. They saw ships sailing from the islands scattered like stones across the Aegean sea, and they spied a man from on high standing like a strong tower at the head of his ship, leading his massive fleet of warriors to their families, crying out in victory. Beelzebub saw the righteousness of heaven in the man’s eye and they were filled with bitterness. They began to weave a storm, feeling the power and bliss of the waters. The great, drowning ocean was teeming with life. They remembered, as an angel, pulling on the substance of God’s light and planting flowers at the bottom of the sea, breathing to life fish, whales, jellyfish – The creatures flying from their spirit and disappearing into the deep. Now, in sadness and rage, Beelzebub pulled the waters cruelly, churning them, casting the ships against one another and sending others toward the treacherous rocky shoals surrounding the cliffside._ _  
_ _  
_ _They felt the charge of lightning and the tall, ethereal presence beside them but still they did not cease. The men in the ships below were praying to the Gods they believed in, asking for forgiveness._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I will not let you kill him,” a voice said, clear as a bell, sweet and strong, and still Beelzebub did not turn, did not stop their rage._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Enough,” the voice said, after a while, and Beelzebub felt empty as the storm clouds cleared and the ships, some destroyed, many men drowned in the ocean, were scattered across the sea. Beelzebub saw the leader, his righteous eye, his ship damaged but still floating. He looked across the great sea and seemed to look directly at them on the rocky cliff._ _  
_ _  
_ _Beelzeub turned and though they knew what it was to look at an angel, it had been so dark, so damp, so lonely for what felt like an eternity… They had to gaze at Gabriel the Archangel for many moments before they could finally see him. He was wearing white, as they all wore before they were split, sigils and other squirming symbols burning in hot gold on the edge of the fabric, and though Beelzebub could still read them, each line was a betrayal._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I have saved him. He will return home,” Gabriel assured, always so confident, always so genial, his teeth always slightly bared._ _  
_ _  
_ _“It will take him a decade to return to his family. He will suffer greatly,” Beelzebub said, their voice crass and buzzing in the hot air._ _  
_ _  
_ _“So be it,” Gabriel agreed calmly. He paused with his hands crossed before him. When Beelzebub had been a being of heaven, they recalled that the angels were constantly reaching for one another. They were constantly touching– Wings, hands, shoulders. What had changed in heaven after the war for him to be so conservative? Or was it the fact that they were now a demon?_ _  
_ _  
_ _It was different in hell. They were always touching, but it was because it was crowded, dank, suffocating… They bumped into one another, pushed, shoved, tripped, knocked, pulled and slipped past. Nobody reached out._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Do you remember your name?” Gabriel asked bluntly, looking out into the ocean. Beelzebub was naked, their wings dishevelled and crooked and unused._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Beelzebub is my name now, angel,” they had whispered back. A cold breeze flew passed them._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Your real name,” Gabriel asked, desperately, as though he needed to know or else it would destroy him._ _  
_ _  
_ _Beelzebub stayed silent. They did not feel like indulging Gabriel today, not when God mocked them with their own creation. The truth was that they did not know their name anymore. God had scored it from their spirit._ _  
_ _  
_The air was charged with lightning once more and Beelzebub did not need to open their eyes to know Gabriel had alighted from heaven, rolling his shoulders. He wore an inappropriately warm suit jacket and slacks. His violet eyes blinked, his back to the ocean, standing over Beelzebub’s smaller frame sitting slouched on the rocky ground.  
  
“Well… Hello,” Gabriel smiled down at them and Beelzebub opened their eyes and stood, walking past the angel and looking deep into the sea. They flicked their hand and an angry, sudden wave crashed violently on the cliffeside. They smiled and took heart that the visceral sea still knew its mother.   
  
“I always thought the ocean was such a lovely creation… Like two worlds, one above and one below,” Gabriel commented thoughtfully, “An entire world teeming with life, a desert of nothingness on top.”   
  
Beelzebub’s blue eyes flicked to the angel.   
  
“The land is too obvious… Ostentatious,” they commented, tilting their head, “and the sea carves it away… Slowly, by degrees… The sea takes it back.”   
  
Gabriel blinked slowly. He had been the one to carve the land from the sea, to fill it with creatures, to pull up its mountains and push down its valleys.   
  
“What do you want?” he asked eventually. He was pensieve.   
  
“I don’t trust Crowley,” Beelzebub commented.   
  
“A demon doesn’t trust another demon? What else is new?” Gabriel asked sarcastically, laughing.   
  
“I don’t think you trust Aziraphale, either,” they continued, flicking their tongue across their teeth.   
  
Gabriel frowned.   
  
“He has not fallen,” he assured, mostly for himself. He no longer believed Aziraphale was One of Them, the angels on high. His thoughts strayed too far downwards for Gabriel’s liking.   
  
“Just because _She_ hasn’t decided to damn him doesn’t mean he isn’t going to fuck everything up,” Beelzebub reasoned.   
  
“You think––?”   
  
“I think Crowley and your angel have been speaking for a very, very long time. I don’t like the way they look at each other.”   
  
Gabriel looked away from Beelzebub’s face because he knew he was guilty of the same.   
  
“We should check in on them, without letting them know,” Beelzebub said, ploughing on, eyes narrowing, watching a sailboat curve around the cliff skillfully, “See what they’re up to.”   
  
“I agree,” Gabriel said solemnly, looking slightly to his right. A fly landed on the sleeve of his suit and he stared at it for a long time.   
  
The winds changed direction and Gabriel wondered if it was God or Beelzebub which caused the dark clouds to roll in from the horizon.   


**Author's Note:**

> UPDATES ON MONDAY  
> (and sometimes friday if im on schedule) 
> 
> in retribution for all the fics i started, posted, and then never updated ever again i'm doing this cool new thing where i get at least 60% of a fic written before i post it. tuck in for a long haul, cause this is gonna be a biggun lmao xoxo gossip girl
> 
> follow my good omens hyperfixation blog on tumblr, 
> 
> goodgaymens
> 
> -chefs kiss-


End file.
